Primros 


IC-NRLF 


LO 


- 


PRIMROSE 
DIPLOMACY 


DISCORDS 

IN 

THE  JINGO   SYMPHONY 

BY 

AN  UNTUNED  LYRE 
THE 

Hbbey  press 


OLonDon 


PUBLISHERS 

114 
FIFTH    AVENUE 

NEW  YORK 


/Montreal 


! 

Copyright, 

1902, 
BY  JOSEPH  HUTCHINSON. 


si. 


DEDICATED  TO  THE 

anfc  JjJonorafile  Stogepft 

AND    TO 


941187 


"  Croak — croak — croak  ! 

You're  a  d— d  little  bloke  !  " 
"Always  was,"  says  the  little  Jackdaw. 

T.  E.  BROWN. 


CONTENTS. 


PAGE 

The  Croaker 9 

The  Stirrup-Cup 1 1 

Warning II 

Weaponless 1 1 

Which  ? 12 

King  Kipling 13 

PRIMROSE  DIPLOMACY 13 

THE  BOER 14 

Mine I? 

GOD  SAVE  THE  QUEEN 17 

Tact 20 

OCTOBER  THE  NINTH,  NINETY-NINE 20 

GLENCOE 21 

Ave  Maria 22 

THE  GOLDEN  LYRE 22 

Turn  About 24 

THE  BRITISH  MUSE 24 

The  Mask 26 

ELANDS  LAAGTE 27 

The  Hammer 30 

TAKE  DOWN  OUR  FLAG 30 

Latitudes 32 

THE  JINGO  STATESMAN 34 

Nail-Driving 35 

7 


8  Contents. 

PAGE 

WHO  BEGAN  THE  WAR  ? 36 

Chained 38 

To  MOTHER  ENGLAND 38 

Mutes 39 

THE  SOUL  COMBINE , 40 

The  Cabbage  Rose 43 

PEACE  AND  PROSPERITY 43 

Bubbles 47 

Sample 48 

Children 48 

The  Camel's  Back 50 

Sine  Qua  Non 50 

THE  FALSE  WITNESS 50 

THE  BEST  EVIDENCE.    52 

Per  Alium 53 

Freedom 54 

JOIN  THE  CRY 55 

The  Touchstone 56 

STRABISMUS 57 

CLAIRVOYANCE 57 

SAVE  MY  CECIL 57 

Fits 59 

COLENSO 59 

MYOPIA 60 

SPION  KOP 60 

THE  HIGHER  CIVILIZATION 61 

Flames 62 

Mates 64 

Bonnie  Brown  Bird : 66 

THE  SUN,  THE  MOON  AND  THE  DOGS .'..... 66 

SIMONTY 67 

THE  PRESENCE 67 

Cum  Grano 69 

TRUTH,  JUSTICE,  LIBERTY 69 


Contents.  9 

PAGE 

THE  QUEEN'S  FEAST 71 

THE  DREAM  OF  EMPIRE 73 

THE  PURPLE  ROBE 74 

BURY  THEM  DEEP 78 

THE  WORLD'S  MASTER 78 

Sesame 84 

SAINT  FRANCIS 84 

Heresy 88 

VICTORY . 89 

Universalism , 89 

TEN  THOUSAND  GONE 90 

Aspiration , 91 

To  THE  WAR  EDITOR 91 

The  Independent  Press 92 

EXPANSION 93 

REVERSION  ...  94 

The  Mortar-Box 94 

The  Literary  Outlook  on  January  6,  1900 96 

THE  SOUTHERN  CROSS 97 

To-Wit 98 

PHOZBE 98 

CRONJE 99 

THE  GREATEST  COMMERCIAL  ASSET . 101 

THE  POET  VISITS  THE  CAPE 101 

The  Sign  of  the  Elephant 103 

The  'Andkerchief 104 

The  Gong : 105 

THE  WEAVER 106 

THE  BUTCHER-BIRD 107 

BLOEMFONTEIN 108 

DISSOLUTION 109 

JOUBERT IIO 

ORANGE  RIVER  COLONY no 

FREE  ENGLAND..  .  ui 


io  Contents. 


PAGE 

THE  BRITISH  SLAVE 112 

A  Purple  Tail  Patch 115 

Undertones 161 

IT  is  WELL , 119 

Overtones 1 20 

THE  PITY  OF  THE  PUSHIFUL 122 

The  Mortar-Board 123 

To  Tommy  and  Budge 123 

Saint  George 124 

Saint  Matthew 125 

NOT  A  COLLEY 1 28 

The  Isle  of  Man. 128 

CECILIAN  WHISPERS , 129 

THE  KYNOCKOSKINATOR 133 

COMPENSATION 137 

SYMPTOMS 139 

WHO  SHOULD  PAY  ? 142 

The  Golden  Fleece 145 

MADE  IN  AMERICA 146 

TACKED 147 

Saint  Stephen = 148 

HEROD 151 

The  Hot  House 152 

AND  Now  THE  GREATEST  ONE 1 53 

THE  QUEEN  is  DEAD 154 

CABLED  FROM  COWES 155 

Retouching 1 57 

Howells  on  Stedman 1 58 

Guides 1 58 

Tricolors ' 160 

SAINT  MARK 160 

KHAKI 161 

Howells 1 61 

The  Nation. . .  162 


Contents.  1 1 

PAGE 

Go  With  Him  Twain 163 

The  Outlook 163 

ESTIMATION 164 

HOUNSLOW  HEATH 165 

NEMESIS , 165 

THE  BELLOWS ...  1 56 

THE  EXTINCT  LIBERAL 167 

MILNER 167 

MESMER 168 

PROTECTION 168 

Liberty 169 

The  Dinner  Pail 170 

Ballast. 170 

Federal  Bankruptcy 170 

The  Fading  Flag 170 

The  Constitution , 172 

SAINT  HELENA 172 

SALISBURY 173 

A  PRIME  MINISTER 173 

THE  IRON-BROWN'D  LATH 176 

THE  ROTTEN  BOROUGH 176 

The  Critic 178 

The  Stopper 179 

The  Cork 180 


PRIMROSE  DIPLOMACY, 


THE  CROAKER. 

THERE'S  no  "  true  metal  "  here,  I  know- 
To  quote  from  Matthew  A. — 

But  then  'tis  I  confess  it  so, 
And  so  'tis  I  can  say 

To  any  charitable  hearts 

To  whom  my  croaker  sings : 

A  frog,  despite  inspiring  parts, 
Can  never  capture  wings. 

Remember,  when  near  Winter's  flight 
You  hear  his  croaking  strong, 

Not  he  who  sets  a  wrong  aright 
Is  set  to  write  a  song. 

And  still  the  Winter's  at  the  root — 

Remember  that  again — 
Be  patient  till  the  Spring's  afoot — 

He  may  do  better  then. 


io  Primrose  Diplomacy. 

Or  when  the  Spring  her  course  has  run — 

More  fitted  to  him  yet — 
He  might  be  then  prevailed  upon 

To  do  a  Summer  set. 

And  Summer  over,  Autumn,  all 

Her  grinding  axles  hot, 
Puts  on  the  road,  whate'er  be  Fall, 

An  automobile  lot, 

To  last  until  the  runners  come. 

No  more  a  wheel  or  wing 
Awakes  the  bull-frog  sleeping  some 

Three  months  again  till  Spring. 

The  bull-frog  sleeping  ?     Never !     No ! — 

No  sleeper  that  sly  elf, — 
And  tho'  he  seem  however  so, 

He's  croaking  to  himself. 

And  when  the  strong  Spring  croaks  you  hear 

The  sylvan  echoes  waking, 
There's  not  a  croak  however  clear 

But  what's  of  Winter's  making. 


Weaponless.  n 


THE  STIRRUP-CUP. 

QUICK  to  the  saddle!     See  how  sad  I'll  be! 
Stir  up  the  lees  and  lift  the  stirrup-cup ! 
Quaff  to  the  dregs  and  drag  along  with  me 
To  pick  an  epic  or  a  hiccup  up. 

WARNING. 

IF  in  ensuing  lines  should  seem  combined 

Both  Stephens  Phillips'  grace  and  ornament 

With  Matthew  Arnold's  classic  cast  of  mind, 

Be  sure  it  could  be  but  by  accident. 

The  humble  authors  had  in  contemplation 

To  reproduce  exactly,  more  or  less, 

The  gentle  spirit  of  the  New  York  Nation 

Informed  by  the  Associated  Press. 

WEAPONLESS. 

SHAMEFACED  I'd  stand  before  the  real  King's 

son, 

And  own  no  magic  purple  in  the  veins 
Of  any  line  that  leads  to  me.     Who  held  the 

reins 

Drove  often  without  help  of  mine,  and  won 
Often,  and  often  lost.     Trembles  the  shock 
Along  the  plain.     The  final  battle-cry 


12  Primrose  Diplomacy. 

Summons.     Not  even  broken  sword  have  I, 
Nor  string,  nor  pebble,  nor  an  alpen-stock. 
Thus  poorly  ready,  must  I  therefore  yield 
To  the  invader's  armored  host  this  day 
So  pregnant  with  the  future — turn  away 
And  with  the  craven  hurry  from  the  field  ? 
Never !     Tho'  empty-handed,  speed  me  in : 
'Tis  not  the  weapon,  but  the  cause,  will  win. 


WHICH? 

WHAT  shall  the  music  of  the  future  be? 
The  organ  and  the  voices  are  the  same 
As  w'hen  the  great  Homeric  message  came. 
Who  shall  the  master  of  the  music  be? 
If  some  foul  fiend  from  out  the  underworld 
Gains  the  possession  of  the  keys  and  choir — 
Back  to  the  caverns  of  eternal  fire 
Bid  the  drowird  echoes  of  despair  be  hurl'd. 
But  seat  instead  the  Spirit  of  the  Air — 
Love,  Light  and  Tolerance  and  Beauty  there — 
Homer  and  Dante,  Shakespeare  and  the  great 
Singer  of  Paradise — Browning  and  his  mate. 
Then  shall  the  music  of  the  future  be 
Thunder-crown'd  heights  in  Freedom's  sym 
phony. 


Primrose  Diplomacy.  13 


KING  KIPLING. 

WHAT  care  I  how  critics  complain  ? 

By  the  right  of  my  genius  I  reign. 

At  my  post  in  the  van  of  the  mind, 

Must  I  wait  for  advice  from  behind  ? 

In  my  choice  of  each  weapon  and  tool 

Can  I  stop  to  consult  every  fool? 

I  know  not  your  phrases  and  fetters, 

I  boost  what  I  please  into  Letters ; 

Do  I  like  it  ?     In  it  goes — jamb ! 

You  condemn  it?     I  don't  care  a  "  Damn." 

PRIMROSE  DIPLOMACY. 

THE  representatives  upon  their  bellies  lie; 

Now  crawl  from  rock  to  rock,  sneak  a  pot-shot. 

Bang ! — then  the  whiffle  of  a  screeching  shell — 

The  Secretary  is  preparing  things — 

Crash ! — Bang !  the  air  is  full  of  blood  and 
bones. 

The  whole  ambassadorial  host  now  rise, 

And  rush  and  dodge  and  stab  and  cut  and 
shoot — 

Crack-err!  ca-pow!  zip-zip!  piff-paff !  thud- 
thud  ! 

Accredited  to  pacify  -and  soothe. 

This  diplomatic  parliamental  corps 


14  Primrose  Diplomacy. 

Now  wildly  wave  their  hands  and  add  their 

yells 

To  the  already  weighted  atmosphere. 
Then    rotting    corpses    stick    from    ill-made 

graves. 

The  general  cocks  his  cup  upon  his  front, — 
North-east      by      north, — no ! — north — there ! 

north-north-west, — 
Pins  up  his  metals  on  his  sample  case, 
And  with  complacence  views  the  perfect  scene. 
And  then  the  author  of  the  enterprise, 
The  pushful  genius  who  promotes  it  all, 
Takes  final  courage  to  poke  out  his  nose. 

THE  BOER. 

EXILED  from  home,  driv'n  on  a  frowning  coast, 
Freedom  'his  cry. 
No  freedom  found  he  there, 
But  onward  he  must  fare; 
Onward  and  further  onward 
His  patient  quest  pursued ; 
No  home  or  resting-place  for  him ; 
His  camp  no  sooner  set 
Than  his  malignant  fate, 
Insatiable  greed, 

Came  down  to  drive  him  further  on. 
Before  him,  danger  and  death  from  flood  and 
desert,  beast  and  savage  men ; 


The  Boer.  15 

Behind  him,  organized  rapacity. 

Counting  naught  dear  but  liberty, 

His  forward  track  is  marked  with  battlefields 

and  graves, 
Till  now,  push'd  to  the  utmost  verge  of  barren 

earth, 
Beyond  him  a  trackless  wilderness  to  which  he 

cannot  flee, 

He  stands  at  last  at  bay. 
Facing  the  same  inveterate  enemy, 
He  gathers  the  wife  and  children  close  about 

him, 

And  lifting  his  heart  to  heaven, 
Waits  the  mortal  blow. 

Dear  shall  it  cost  the  ruffians  who  bestow  it, 
But,  soon  or  late,  their  dastard  work  is  done, 
And  he  and  his  lie  dead. 
And  liberty  lies  dead. 

Shame,  England,  S'hame! 

Tool  of  dishonest  men ; 

Her  conscience  barter'd  to  the  stock  exchange; 

Her  armies  hired  to  the  hosts  of  greed  ; 

Her  flimsy,  lying  pretexts  of  excuse 

But  deepen  still  the  blackness  of  her  crime; 

Her  name  thrice-sullied  now,  her  noble  name. 

Shame,  England,  Shame! 


16  Primrose  Diplomacy. 

America,  Friend  of  Freedom, 
Where  st-andest  thou  ? 
Canst  thou  be  silent  now? 
Canst  thou  stand  meekly  by  and  see  this  out 
rage  done  as  if  with  thy  consent? 
Alas !    Guilty  herself, 

Her  hands  red  and  her  tents  bulging  with  loot, 
She  dare  but  silent  be, 
Ashamed. 

Wake!    Wake!    Awake!    Spirit  of  Freedom, 

Wake! 

Rouse  up  the  sleeping  conscience  ere  it  die. 
False  to  their  trust  the  so-called  governments, 
Chains  but  to  league  the  masses,  ill  or  well, 
And  sell  their  power  to  the  work  of  hell. 

Awake,  mankind,  they  cannot  chain  your  souls, 
Arouse,  whate'er  your  color,  name  or  state, 
Cry  out,  cry  out,  your  protest,  and  again  cry 

out, 

Till  on  and  on  in  rising  mighty  storm, 
Roars  out  the  alarm  to  all  the  universe, 
That  liberty  is  dead, 
Justice  is  dead. 

And  Heaven,  sullen,  echoes  tack  with  deep- 
ton'd  kneel  of  foredoom'd  empire. 


God  Save  the  Queen.  17 


MINE. 

RHYMELESS  and  metreless — a  ragged  thing — 
Breaks  over  every  canon  of  the  trade — 
And  yet  I'd  rather  own  that  ragged  thing 
Than  be  the  greatest  critic  ever  made. 

GOD  SAVE  THE  QUEEN ! 

HURRAH  !  Hurrah !  Hurrah ! 
Throw  high  the  hats  and  sticks  into  the  air. 

Hurrah !  Hurrah !  Hurrah !  Hurrah ! 
Bellow  the  business  men  and  brokers. 

Hurrah!     Hurrah!     Hurrah!     Hurrah! 
Hurrah ! 

God  Save  the  Queen! 

See  the  splendid  fleet  of  transports, 
The  Marathon,  the  Monarch  and  the  Monster, 
Each  with  a  thousand  British  soldiers, 
Each  with  the  Union  Jack  a-flying, 
Each  with  its  royal  band  a-playing, 
God  Save  the  Queen! 

Here  the  general,  Sir  Redvers  Buller,  sir, 
With  all  his  honorable  decorations,  sir  ; 
They've  given  him  the  absolute  control,  sir; 
He  wouldn't  stir  a  step  unless  they  did,  sir; 


1 8  Primrose  Diplomacy. 

They've  voted  him  a  hundred  thousand  men, 

sir; 

He  said  he  wouldn't  be  a  second  Colley,  sir; 
And  with  him  such  a  lot  of  noble  sirs,  sir — 

The  finest  staff  that  ever  left  the  shore. 

Hail !  Noble  England !  Hail ! 
Mother  of  admirals,  generals,  statesmen ! 
At  last  the  doom  of  tyranny  is  sounding. 
Poor  Armenia  !    Saddest  of  all  the  earth ; 
She  dare  not  even  weep  her  thousands  slain ; 
Blood,  blood  and  blood  again,  for  weary  ages; 
Unheard  the  cries  of  her  despairing  women ; 
Unheard  the  cries  of  all  her  murdered  chil 
dren — 

Seeming  unheard — but  England  heard  and  an 
swers. 

Slow  is  the  Anglo-Saxon  heart  to  kindle, 
Nice  is  the  Anglo-Saxon  sense  of  justice, 
War  is  an  awful  thing  and  must  be  dreaded, 
Must  be  postponed  till  other  means  exhausted. 
Patient  and  slow  was  England  with  the  Sultan, 
Till  now  the  outrage  is  too  great  to  suffer ; 
At  last  the  doom  of  tyranny  is  sounding, 
For  England  shakes  herself,  magnificent. 
And  all  this  splendid  fleet  and  mighty  army 
Sails  straightway  through  the  Gates  of  Her 
cules, 
Ploughs  up  the  waters  of  the  Middle  Ocean, 


God  Save  the  Queen.  19 

Lays  low  in  ashes  all  the  Sultan's  cities, 
Sweeps  with  avenging  flames  through  all  the 

country, 
Wipes  out  that  awful  stain  from  off  the  earth, 

Restores  Armenia  to  her  own ! 
Brings  in  the  century  with  peace  and  joy! 

Hail!  Noble    England!     Hail,     and    all 
Hail! 

They're  sailing  to  do  up  a  dozen  Dutchmen ! 
To  quiet  title  to  the  good  mines, 

And  incidentally  a  lot  of  poor  ones ; 
And  to  sustain  the  dignity  of  England ; 
And  boom  the  shares  of  all  the  railroads ; 
And  to  establish  equal  rights ! 

America,  home  of  pilgrims,  what  say  you  ? 
Hush!  Hush!  Be   still!  You,    traitor!  Hush! 
American  canned  goods  are  booming, 
Demand  for  horses  is  unprecedented, 
Breadstuffs  and  ammunition. 

Hush!    Hush!    Hurrah!    Hurrah!    Hur 
rah! 

God  Save  the  Queen! 

God  speed  the  Dutchmen's  bullets! 
God  spare  the  Dutchmen's  homes ! 
Catch  Cecil  Rhodes  and  skin  him ! 
Blow  up  the  Marquis  and  Joe  Chamberlain! 
God  Save  the  Queen! 


20  Primrose  Diplomacy. 


TACT. 

I  KNOW  some  Irishmen  who  think  that's  beau 
tiful, 
Some  Germans  and  some  Frenchmen  say  the 

same; 

Based  on  their  estimates  I  could  compute  a  full, 
And  firmly  file,  a  literary  claim. 
But  best  of  all,  I  know  some  Englishmen, 
Whose  every  drop  denies  that  they  be  Dutch, 
Declare,  these  diplomatic  Englishmen, 
They  like  my  verses  better  than  they  like  me, 
much! 

"  OCTOBER  THE  NINTH,  NINETY- 
NINE." 

No   right   but  might;  no  end   but  gain;    no 

wrong 

So  deep  and  vile  but  she  has  let  it  be 
If  undisturbed  in  acquisition  she, 
Her  title-hungry,  wealth-adoring  throng. 
Great  prizes  still  unseized,  but  far  too  strong 
The  foes  that  guard.     Too  long  now  idle  we, 
Have  Emperor,  Czar  and  Sultan  "  bidden  us 

be"— 
"  Patience,  long  sick  to  death,  is  dead — too 

long!" 


Glencoe.  21 

Hark!  Hark!  What   sound   from   Africa   we 

hear ! 

Goaded  to  madness,  in  fair  Freedom's  name 
A  band  of  farmers  dare  denounce  her  shame! 
The  long-sought  opportunity  is  near : 
Rich  prize,  weak  f oe — we  scarce  had  hoped  the 

like! 

Strike  quick !  Strike  home !  Strike,  noble  Eng 
land,  strike! 

GLENCOE 

WEEP  not  for  those  who  fell  at  Glencoe's  hill; 
It  is  a  soldier's  privilege  to  die 
Facing  the  foe,  and  falling,  silent  lie, 
Obedient  to  the  mother  country's  will. 
Weep  not  for  faithful  hearts  at  home  who  still 
Stand   waiting,    trembling,    till  their   anxious 

sigh 

The  fatal  message  turns  to  stifled  cry, 
The  last  full  measures  of  their  sorrow  fill. 
Weep,    weep!  that   in   such   needless,    wicked 

strife— 
Mere  puppets  in  a  politician's  plot, 
Unholy  war  of  gambler's  greed  begot — 
True  hearts  are  torn,  brave  spirits  yield  their 

life. 
Tears,  love  and  shame,  with  rising  wrath  must 

blend  ; 
Worthy,  such  soldiers,  of  a  worthier  end. 


22  Primrose  Diplomacy. 


AVE  MARIA. 

PUT  not  the  sonnet  to  such  evil  use; 
Spare  her  soft  tissues  so  unkind  abuse, 
Tithe  mint  and  cummin,  frankincense  and  rue ; 
Banish  your  Swinburnes  and  your  Austins  too ; 
Kick  out   your   cobblers,    lend   your   Taylors 

sway, — 
Tho'  takes  ten  Taylors  to  make  one  Jos?. 

THE  GOLDEN  LYRE. 

THE  poet  reaches  for  his  golden  lyre; 
He -hastens  with  it  to  the  window  pane — 
Vibrant  the  wire  with  prophetic  hire — 

He  screws  it  tight 

With  a  copyright : 

Then  see  him  smite  with  a  mighty  smite — 
The  while  he  gazes  at  the  weather-vane: 

I  sing  the  right  of  the  man  that's  white 

To  rule  black,  red  and  yellow; 
It  is  not  wrong  for  the  man  that's  strong 
To  rob  his  weaker  fellow. 
By  bloody  fight 
I  spread  the  light 
Of  truth  majestic,  queenly; 

I'll  never  cease  till  a  graveyard  peace 
Surrounds  the  earth  serenely. 


The  Golden  Lyre.  23 

I  sing  the  shriek  of  the  screeching  shell 

And  the  zip-zip  dum-dum  ball, 
The  crunching  bone  and  the  smothered  groan, 

The  blood  of  the  men  who  fall. 
I  build  the  State 
On  racial  hate 
[And  Christianity  up  to  date. 
The  way  of  teaching  line  by  line 
Is  a  fine  old  way,  but  it  is  not  mine 
No  patient  precepts,  one  by  one; 
But  Gospel  maxims  by  the  ton 
I  pump  into  them  with  a  Maxim  gun. 

There  is  no  use  to  attack  abuse, 
Except  with  ready  triggers; 
And  if  they  fight,  tho'  they  think  they're  right, 
I  blow  them  up — the  niggers! 

A  sunburn' d  Boer 

Is  little  more 
Than  a  nigger,  too ;  I  sing, 

Lest  we  forget, 

A  republic  set 

On  gold 
Is  a  Tyrant  King!  ! 

Now,  there  is  the  song  that  he  sings  to-day ; 

'Tis  not  the  song  he  sang  yesterday; 

Nor  the  song  he  will  sing  on  his  next  lay  day. 


24  Primrose  Diplomacy. 

He's  shifting  sand; 
With  a  master's  hand 
shovels  his  repertory; 
They  say  his  lay  is  the  lay  of  the  land ; 
Some  godless  call  the  recessional 
A  personal  offertory. 

O,  long  he'll  fire 

His  Golden  Lyre — 
His  great  Eolian  Golden  Lyre — 

Which  way  the  wind  is  blowing; 
He'll  train  his  strain  to  the  weather-vane, 

And  his  lays  of  light 

Will  be  gathered  tight 

In  a  universal  copyright; 
While  his  bank  account  keeps  growing. 

TURN  ABOUT. 

THO'  I  sat  at  his  feet,  dio'  I  stood  in  his  awe, 
He  would  kick  me  as  quick  as  his  brother-in- 
law. 

THE  BRITISH  MUSE. 

BOWING  to  your  kinsmen 

With  your  sweetest  smile, 

Yearning  to  attach  them 
To  your  project  vile. 


The  British  Muse.  25 

Labored  list  of  reasons, 

Scheduled  for  defense ; 
Straightway  swift  the  flash  of  truth 

Pierces  your  pretense. 
Decorate  your  robber 

With  your  painted  lies; 
Still  the  same  old  robber 

Penetrates  disguise. 
Tell  us  now  your  dower, 

Nicely  graded  pelf; 
Call  it  gold  or  power, 

It  is  for  yourself. 
Panting  with  your  protests, 

Honesty  aloof; 
Ever  guilty  conscience 

Needeth  no  reproof. 

We  do  not   want   your   diamonds,    your  gold 

mines  or  your  State — 

Our  purposes  the  purest,  don't  mistake  them — • 
But  our  liberty  to  take  them  we  are  bound  to 

demonstrate, 
And  the  only  way  to  do  it  is  to  take  them. 

Yon  need  not  tell  your  virtue — 

We  have  heard  of  it ; 
You  need  not  tell  your  record — 

We  believe  it; 


26  Primrose  Diplomacy. 

You  need  not  tell  your  motive — 

We  have  word  of  it ; 
You  need  not  tell  your  purpose — 

We  perceive  it. 

Keen  and  vulgar  gatherer  of  shekels — 
All  the  strength  and  all  the  beauty  gone — 
Whence  your  right  to  prostitute  the  language 
To  the  basest  uses  it  has  known  ? 
Tongue  of  freedom  is  the  Anglo-Saxon, 
111  it  fits  the  songs  of  tyranny; 
Tongue  of  truth  the  language  of  our  fathers, 
You  have  wed  it  to  chicanery. 
Self-appointed  steward  of  the  judgment, 
Prophet  of  the  purse,  your  waning  day 
Echoes  and  re-echoes  with  your  clamor, 
With  your  locust  ditty,   "  Pay,  pay,  pay  " — 
Fawn  upon  your  masters  with  your  iterated 

plea — 
"  Pence  for  Tommy  Atkins;  pounds  for  me!" 

THE  MASK. 

No  music  can  veil 
The  form  of  his  tail, 
Nor  skill  keep  aloof 
The  shape  of  his  hoof; 
Tho*  he  tincture  his  blood  with  a  prayer. 


Elands  Laagte.  27 

"Tis  the  voice  of  a  brute, 
Tho'  he  play  o>n  a  lute ; 
See  the  size  of  his  jaws 
Grins  a  rent  in  the  gauze — 
As  you  'ear  'is  Goddam  in  'is  air. 


ELANDS  LAAGTE. 

BORN  on  the  veldt,  a  little  fair-hair' cl  child 
Gazed  on  the  world  thro'  tranquil  azure  eyes, 
Drank,  in  the  depths  of  many  a  midnight  mild, 
The  impassioned  Freedom  of  those  Southern 
skies. 

The  fireside  gleams  shot  on  the  cottage  wall 
Touch  with  deep  cardinal  the  suppliant  forms, 
While  the  low  steadfast  sombre  voices  call 
In  solemn  cadences  the  God  of  Storms. 

Save  us  our  Motherland,  0  God  of  Hosts! 
Save  us  our  Freedom,  Father  of  the  Free! 
Drive  thou  the  Arch-Deceiver  from  our  coasts! 
Bid  the  Great  Promise-Breaker  broken  be! 

The  f air-hair' d  farm-lad  echoes  the  appeal, 
The  firm  "  Amen  "  still  vibrates  on  his  lips, 
His  eyes  flash  lightning  and  his  teeth  set  steel, 
As  if  upon  his  rifle-stock  he  grips. 


28  Primrose  Diplomacy. 

Beetling  ambition  met  unbridled  greed, 
Hasted  unlovely  nuptials  to  proclaim; 
Indecent  vows  gave  pregnant  evil  speed  : 
Abortive  war,  black,  base,  dishonored  came. 

Quick  sped  the  summons,  quicker  the  reply, 
Thrilling  the  veldt  as  sunrise  thrills  the  sea; 
Flashing  from  hearth  to  hearth  the  call  to  die 
In  last  devoted  pledge  to  liberty. 

Never  a  tear  the  grim-faced  mother  shed, 
Kissing  her  fair-hair'd  lad  she  bade  him  go. 
Quick  to  the  saddle ;  soon  the  day  is  sped — 
Not  sooner  than  the  rising  torrents  flow, 

Flow  to  the  bounds,  flow  till  they  overflow, 
Down    the    aggressor's    valleys    through    the 

night; 

Pour  and  outspread,  until  the  morning  glow 
Beholds  the  foe's  vain-glory  fade  in  flight. 

Back  on  the  veldt,  firm-visaged  women  toil, 
Fed  by  the  farther  vision  Duty  sees, 
Bending  their  furrowed  faces  to  the  soil. 
The  great  invincible  reserves  are  these! 

At  Elands  Laagte,  on  the  verge  of  hell. 
The  boy's  dread  reckonings  were  counted  by 
The  pallid  score  when  on  the  British  fell 
The  leaping  red-tongued  rifles  in  full  cry. 


Elands  Laagte.  29 

Until  by  chance  an  ill-aimed  shrapnel  shell, 
Bursting  above  the  boulders  where  he  lay, 
Hastened  its  rending  messages  to  tell; 
Told  them.     Behold  him  bleed  his  life  away. 

Sold  to  the  Queen,  an  Irish  renegade, 

In  hurried  flight  among  the  boulders  stole, 

On  Kitchener's  loom    with    Kipling's  pattern 

made, 
The  White  Man's  Burden  branded  on  his  soul. 

"  Dead  hogs  are  best !  " — the  helpless  boy  he 

spied — 

Vile  words  outrunning  villainous  intent— 
"  Dead  hogs  are  best !  " — with  smothered  curse 

he  cried, 
Poising  his  bladed  weapon  as  he  went, — 

Straight  to  the  heart  he  drove ;  recoiling  came 
The  shivering  steel   drench'd  in  the   rushing 

flood, 
While   o'er   the   glassing   eye   and    quivering 

frame 
A  mighty  oath  stamp' d  Britain's  seal  in  blood. 

Loud  let  her  drum-beat  roll  upon  the  gale, 
Plant  her  red  auction-flag  on  every  coast, 
Word  to  the  world  that  England  is  for  sale, 
Nor  questions  whomsoever  bids  the  most. 


3o  Primrose  Diplomacy. 


THE  HAMMER. 

THO'  the  music  may  commingle 
With  the  metre  and  the  jingle — 

Give  me  jagged  things — I  would  the  granite 

rend — 

Let  me  batter,  let  me  shatter 
With  a  smashing  and  a  crashing, 

Give  me  something  with  a  hammer  on  the  end. 

TAKE  DOWN  OUR  FLAG. 

The  British  placed  the  Stars  and  Stripes  beside  the  British 
and  the  German  flag. 

BRITON,  if  this  be  merest  momentary  mark  of 

formal  courtesy, 
Tis  well ; 

But  if  our  flag  is  there  displayed  by  you 
In  impudent   assuming   our   approval  of  your 

present  crimes, 
We  bid  you  take  it  down ! 

Nay,  let  her  keep  it  there ; 

Think  of  the  honor  and  the  royal  company; 

Think  of  the    titled    names,    the    wealth  and 

power ; 

'Twill  only  bring  new  glory  to  the  flag 
To  let  them  keep  it  there. 


Take  Down  our  Flag.  31 

Nay,  let  her  keep  the  flag; 

Peace,  keep  the  peace  with  Britain; 

Think  of  her  army  and  her  navy, 

Think  of  her  vast  domain ; 

Keep,  keq)  the  peace  with  Britain, 

For  we  may  need  her  influence  and  power. 

Yes,  let  her  keep  the  flag. 


Traitor  and  slave !    Let  her  not  keep  the  flag ! 
Shall  we  with  craven  mien  and  coward  heart, 
Fooled  by  her  flattery,  tempted  by  her  tender 

of  support, 

Give  o'er  this  sacred  ernblem — the  flag  of  liber 
ty— 

The  flag  all-hallowed  by  the  blood  of  Lincoln — 
The  flag  ennobled  by  its  strife  with  Lee — 
The  flag  of  Lee  and  Lincoln — and  the  hope  of 

waiting  millions, 

And  basely  yield  it  to  the  keeping  of  an  alien, 
To  drag  and  mire  it  ? 


America,  trust  not  the  treaty-breaker; 
Entrust  no  sacred  thing  unto  her  keeping; 
Put  not  the  smallest  faith  in  all  her  promises ; 
When  you  were  weak  and  poor,  she  scorn' d 

you, 
Throttled  and  raged  to  strangle  you ; 


32  Primrose  Diplomacy. 

Now  you  are  rich  and  strong  she  fawns  upon 

you, 

She  courts  you  but  to  use  you, 
Trust  her  not. 

Briton,  take  'down  that  flag ! 

The  flag  is  ours,  not  yours ! 

With  ruthless  hands  you've  wrested  countless 
flags, 

But  you  cannot  have  ours. 

Take  down,  take  down  our  flag — 

'Tis  not  a  poor,  weak  band  of  farmers  speak 
ing— 

But  millions  freemen,  bi'd  you  take  it  down ! 

LATITUDES. 

ONE  said  that  the  lines  were  passing  fair 
And  sure  to  be  copied  everywhere — 

And  she  was  right 
From  the  sunny,  sunny  South — 

The  land  of  heat  and  light. 

Another  said  it  was  platitude, 
As  well  as  the  basest  ingratitude 
To  England,  whose  good  offices  of  late, — 
Our  Empire  just  beginning  to  incubate — 
Had  talked  plain  English  to  the  continental 
scoff, 


Latitudes.  33 

And  said  to  them  all  with  a  right  good  will : 

"Hands  off!" 
And  she  thought  I  must  a  most  relentless  foe 

be,  a 

Sad  sort  of  case  of  a  radical  Anglophobia. 
And  she  was  right 
From  the  northern  night; 
And  she  had  just  come  forth 
From  the  freezing,  freezing  North. 


But  the  third 
Had  never  a  word 
To  be  lost  on 

Such  stuff,  till  her  airy  eye  she  tost  on 
The  midst  of  the    fourth    line  from  the 

end — 

Defend,  defend — 

"  If  you'd  like  to  make  that  line  sound  true, 
You  should  put  the  'ours'   'twist  the  '.but' 
and  the  '  you.'  " 

And  she  was  wrong, 
For  she'd  spoil'd  the  song. 
'Twas  an  idle,  idle  plan, 
For  she  didn't  know  how  to  scan 
The  smallest  mite, 
Yet  she  was  right 
From  Boston. 


3 


34  Primrose  Diplomacy. 


THE  JINGO  STATESMAN. 

UNDERSTUDY  of  the  cool  commercial  pirate, 

Whose  outward  smile  and  inward  sneer 

Have  spread  abroad  for  many  years 

Their  baleful  influence  to  foment 

Hate  and  strife — fit  progeny  of  faith 

That  no  man  lives  who  does  not  have  his  price. 

More  dangerous  than  his  model,  though  less 

able; 

For  the  one  makes  free  unblushing  boast 
His  mock  at  virtue,  and  of  him  the  whole  earth 
Stands  forewarned;  but  this  base  imitator 
Poses  in  a  place  of  public  trust, 
And  feigning  deep    devotion    to  the  nation's 

weal, 

Pours  out  her  treasure  and  her  blood 
To  elevate  himself. 

Once  such  as  he — less  guilty  far — went  forth 
and  hanged  himself. 

He,  shameless,  gaily  mounts  his  rotten  emi 
nence; 

With  arrogant  assurance  gazes  round — 
He  knows  full  well  how  many  gathered  there 
Are  bounden  slaves  of  his  unholy  bounty — 


Nail-Driving.  35 

He  stands,  he  swells,    he    struts,    salutes  and 
smiles ! 

Ye  Gods !  The  world  is  kneeling  at  his  feet ! 

Lift  up,  lift  up  the  heart,  lift  up  the  voice, 

Soul  of  the  century  to  come ! 

Soul  of  the  centuries  gone ! 

Torch  greet eth  torch;  flame  reacheth  flame; 

From  distant  radiant  peaks  of  past  and  future 

The  answering  signals  come; 

Pile  up,  pile  up  the  faggots,  light  the  pile, 

Heat  seven  times  the  furnace  of  your  scorn, 

Till  something  on  this  darkest  planet  shines 

Save  gold  and  brass ! 


NAIL-DRIVING. 

Is  the  gratification  which  Matthew  has  said 
Is  given  by  nail-driving,  from 
The  pleasure  of  hitting  the  nail  on  the  head? 
Or  the  joy  of  not  hitting  your  thumb? 

And  I  wonder,  in  practising  things  of  this  sort, 
If  the  pleasures  of  nail-driving  do 
Extend  to  the  head  of  the  nail?     Is  it  sport 
For  the  stuff  that  the  nail's  driven  through? 


36  Primrose  Diplomacy. 

I  have  a  suspicion — I  think  it  is  right — 
That  a  hammerer's  labors  must  fail 
If  the  aim  he  exclusively  has  in  his  sight 
Is  to  batter  the  head  of  the  nail. 

Didactics  I  banish — away  with  such  things — 
For  Sill  says  all  teachings  offend, — 
Tis  but  a  suggestion  my  diffidence  brings 
That  hammering  should  have  an  end, — 

An  end  that  is  seen  e'er  the  process  begins, 
A  plain  and  deliberate  plan, 
For  without  it  the  skilfulest  hammering  wins, 
And  deserves  what  it  wins — but  a  ban. 

And    the    nail    and    the    hammering    certain 

enough, 

Unattached  to  some  definite  aim, 
Together  with  hammerer,  hammer  and  stuff, 
Are  all  stuff  and  well  merit  the  name. 

WHO  BEGAN  THE  WAR? 

A  RUFFIAN,  axe  in  hand,  comes  to  my  front 

door 

And  rudely  pounding,  bids  me  let  him  in. 
He  says  he  is  my  friend. 
I  do  not  like  his  looks ; 
I  know  he  has  a  rotten  reputation; 


Who  Began  the  War.  37 

He  has  robbed  me  before; 

And  often  has  made  threats  against  my  life. 

While  I  delay  to  ask  him  a  few  questions, 

I  hear  him  sending  orders  to  his  fellow-ruffians 

To  bring  their  axes,  take  their  stations, 

One    at    my    other    door,    one    each  at  every 

window, 
And  surround  my  house. 

Shall  I  wait  quietly  until  his  fellow-ruffians 

Come  with  their  axes,  and  all  together 

Crash  through  my  doors  and  windows,  loot  my 

home, 
And  murder  me  and  mine? 

Quick,  quick,  wait  not,  fling  open,  rush  straight 

forth, 
Seize  by  the  throat,  and  kill  him  if  you  can! 

Then  who  began  the  war?     The  householder? 
Or  the  ruffian  with  the  axe? 

Kruger  and  Joubert,  patriots,  statesmen,  gen 
eral! 

You  did  right;  'tis  England's  own  law  for  it; 

Good  enough  for  her ;  protects  the  life 

Of  humblest  British  citizen  throughout  the 
world ; 


38  Primrose  Diplomacy. 

The  sacred  common  law  of  self-defence. 

And  decent,  honest,  manly  men  in  all  the  world 

Will  never  let  her  lying  politicians 

Cloud  the  real  issue,  or  whitewash  out 

Their  own  foul  hatching  of  this  wretched  plot. 

CHAINED. 

OH,  you  whole-educated  person,  look  at  me! 
I  am  but  half,  half -educated.     See? 
So  while  you  sit  and  snarl  at  all  I  do, 
I  look  in  vain  for  anything  by  you. 

TO  MOTHER  ENGLAND. 

MOTHER  ENGLAND,  your  own  Walpole  said  of 
you 

Before,  when  you  were  charmed  by  false  ad 
visers, 

That  England  was  a  "  dirty,  despicable  is 
land  "— 

The  very  words! — and  that,  disgusted,  the 
"  true  English  " 

Had  emigrated  to  America! 

Neither  so  cynical  nor  flattering  are  we. 

Again  you  listen  to  dishonest  counsel. 
False  to  our  manhood,  false  to  our  love  for 
you; 


Mutes.  39 

Did  we  not  choose  the  sharpest  weapons  of  the 

trenchant  tongue  you  taught  us, 
And  flay  the  wretches  who  would  ruin  you? 

England,  we  love  you.     We  love  honor  more. 
We  seek  your  sympathy  when  we  do  right ; 
We  do  not  want  your  sympathy  when  we  do 

wrong ; 
You  cannot  have  our  sympathy  when  you  do 

wrong. 

We  do  not  boast  that  we  are  the  "  true  Eng 
lish  "— 

It  is  enough  if  we  are  true  Americans — 
But,  thank  the  Lord !  still  in  the  motherland 
Most  of  the  many  millions  are  true  English, 
And  when  this  temporary  madness  passes, 
Voices  of  men  like  Watson,  Morley,  Bryce, 
Can  be  no  longer  drowned, 
And  England  may  be  saved. 


MUTES. 

EVILS  most  hideous  pass  before  your  eyes 

Unchallenged  by  your  over-nice  design 

To   balance    judgment.       Crucified    manhood 

cries : 
No  answering  voice  from  you,  no  little  line. 


4o  Primrose  Diplomacy. 

No !  but  instead  I  see  you  cast  your  powers 
Into  the  balance  with  the  powers  of  Hell, 
Shrinking  the    while    your    shrivelled   spirit 

cowers 
Along  the  mart  where  hucksters  buy  and  sell. 

Shrivel  and  shrivel.     Vanish.     Better  so. 
Soon  napkined  talents  also  sordid  be, 
Filth  and  infection  following  them  below 
To  the  stale  precincts  of  banality. 

Worthless  endowment,  worse  than  worthless 

art, 

Wasted  equipment,  prostituted  skill; 
Stuffed  slaves,  in  garb  and  bracelets  of  the  part 
You  prance  and  mimic  round  your  owners' 

mill. 

THE  SOUL  COMBINE. 

THE  Devil  sat  at  the  hopper  of  hell, 

At  the  foot  of  the  chute  that  leads  to  hell, 

And  sorted  and  sampled  the  fuel  well, 

As  the  fuel  came  sliding  down ; 
While  up  at  the  other  end  of  the  chute. 
With  a  gleaming  eye  and  a  smile  to  boot, 
Sat  Servitor  in  a  shining  suit, 

Sending  the  fuel  down. 


The  Soul  Combine.  41 

There  came  an  alarm  from  the  hopper  of  hell, 

As  the  Devil  floated  a  warning  yell, 

For  he  didn't  approve  of  the  fuel's  smell, 

As  the  fuel  came  sliding  down ; 
For  the  Devil  knows,  as  we  all  should  know, 
That  if  the  sulphur  should  go  below 
A  certain  percentage,  it  would  not  go, 

It  would  cool  the  fires  down. 

"  Look  out  for  the  quality,  Servy  dear, 

You  can't  be  too  particular  here, 

They  haven't  spoiled  long  enough  yet,  I  fear — 

You  must  keep  the  quality  down." 
Then  answered  Servitor:  "  Much  I  fear 
The' re  too  many  sparklers  round  up  here, 
They're  making  freedom  and  truth  too  clear — 

I  can't  keep  the  quality  down." 

"  O  Servitor,  now  you  are  far  too  nice; 
Each  one  of  the  sparklers  has  his  price; 
You  can  buy  them  up  in  a  twinkling  trice, 

And  then  you  can  stew  them  down; 
You  pile  them  up  on  the  barnyard  pile, 
And  let  them  ferment  for  a  little  while  ; 
The  sulphur  percentage  will  double  the  while, 

And  you  keep  the  quality  down," 

So  Servitor  gathered  the  sparklers  in, 
He  gathered  the  surplus  sparklers  in, 


42  Primrose  Diplomacy. 

Bought  some  with  titles  and  some  with  tin, 

And  the  sparklers  darkened  down. 
And  the  Devil  and  Servitor  worked  it  so 
That  a  belching  flame  and  a  ruddy  glow 
Came  warming  up  from  the  depth  below, 
As  the  fuel  went  sliding  down. 

And  now,  when  the  firmament's  turning  white 
With  nearing  promise  of  prophet's  sight, 
When  sin  and  its  following  forms  of  fright 

Should  all  with  the  darkness  go, 
The  Devil  or  Servitor  comes  in  sight 
And  purchases  all  the  sparklers  bright, 
And  drags  us  back  to  the  blackest  night, 
W^ith  never  a  light  save  hell's  own  light, 

With  its  fell  familiar  glow. 

Sparklers,  Lord,  only  sparklers, 

Are  fruit  for  the  devil  to  pick; 
Not  the  pure  stars  in  heaven, 

Steady  and  studded  thick; 
Shining  and  shining  ever, 

Knowing  no  other  way, 
Shining  and  shining  brighter, 

Unto  that  perfect  day. 


Peace  and  Prosperity.  43 


THE  CABBAGE  ROSE. 

VAIN  is  the  lingering  hope  to  get — 
Oh !  Knight  of  the  lifted  nose— 
The  dainty  musk  of  the  mignonette 
From  the  breath  of  a  cabbage  rose. 

But  even  the  breath  of  a  cabbage  rose 

Is  the  air  of  the  templed  place 

Where  the  holy  balm  of  the  pine-wood 

grows 
To  the  look  on  that  lofty  face. 

PEACE  AND  PROSPERITY. 

A  SKUNK — pardon  the  term— 

I  do  not  wish  to  speak  offensively — 

In  fact,  I  do  not  choose  the  term  myself, 

I  borrow  the  whole  figure  from  a  book  I  read 

last  week, 

A  book  by  Seton-Thompson,  an  Englishman, 
As  good  a  writer  as  they  make; 
And  Seton-Thompson  says  the  tale  is  true; 
And  as  so  few  things  nowadays  are  true, 
I  did  not  feel  as  tho'  'twould  do  to  change  a 

single  word : 
And  so  I  say  a  skunk — 
I  do  not  need  enlightenment, 


44  Primrose  Diplomacy. 

I  know  full  well  Great  Britain  is  a  lion  and  has 

no  evil  smell — 
Now  for  the  skunk: 

A  skunk  one  morning,  wandering  in  the  wood, 
Was  bothered  by  a  brood  of  little  partridges; 
He  had  no  appetite  for  partridges  himself,  he 

never  had, 
But  he  was  guardian  of  the  wood,  or  thought 

he  was — 
A  most  convenient  thought — he  soon  became 

convinced 
That  peeping  of  the  partridges  disturbed  the 

other  denizens, 

Especially  his  skunklets  stealing  eggs. 
So,  creeping  velvet-footed  through  the  leaves, 
He  saw  the  last  poor  tiny  partridge,  the  runt, 
Straggling  alone  beyond  the  mother's  aid : 
Snap,  crunch,  the  runt  was  gone. 

Then  with  a  smile  mephitic  and  persuasive  as 

his  smell, 

Licking  his  chops  the  while, 
He  beamed  on  all  the  wood : 
"  Peace  and  prosperity,"  he  said,  , 
"  Peace  for  the  runt;  peace  and  prosperity  for 

me; 
Runts  have    no    rights;    partridges    have  no 

rights; 


Peace  and  Prosperity.  45 

Runts,    rights     and     partridges     are    all    for 

skunks." 

The  mother  partridge  dropped  a  hasty  tear, 
And  hurrying  to  save  the  others  of  her  brood, 
Remarked  to  Brother  Rabbit  as  she  passed : 
"  Some  day  that  smeller'll  get  too  big  a  dose." 

You  say  there  will  be  peace  in  Africa ; 
Yes,  yes ;  no  doubt ;  the  grave  is  very  calm. 
You  say  there  will  be  great  prosperity ; 
Pray,    whose   prosperity?      Prosperity    of  the 

dead? 
Prosperity  of  the  deserted  wives,  sweethearts, 

sisters,  mothers,  children, 
Whose  husbands,   lovers,   brothers,    sons   and 

fathers 
Have  been  shot  down  by  Englishmen? 

Returning  to  the  skunk : 

One  day  more  evil  happened  to  the  partridge 

brood : 
They  all  fell  ill,    and    doctoring    with  poison 

sumach, 

Two  of  the  smallest  died. 
The  mother  took  their  little  bodies 
And  laid  them  in  the  pathway  of  the  skunk, 
And  he,  without  so  strong  a  scent  for  sumach 
As  for  partridge — perhaps  absorbed  in  his  own 

odor — 


46  Primrose  Diplomacy. 

Sneaked  up  and  gobbled  them. 

Then  what  a  row !     How  he  did  kick  and  roll 

and  squeal! 
And  scream  for  help ! 
But  not  a  beast,  bird,  snake  or  insect  in  the 

wood 
Would    help — even    his    own    skunklets    ran 

away — 

And  after  a  few  convulsions  more, 
The  self-appointed  guardian  of  the  wood, 
The  steward  of  the  judgment,  so  to  speak, 
Lay  quiet  on  his  back,  with  his  stiff  legs  stick 
ing  in  the  air. 

Then  all  the  forest  audience,  who,  'hushed  and 

breathless 

With  interest  ill-concealed, 
But  themselves  safely  screened  at  prudent  dis 
tances 

Had  watched  the  final  scene, 
Settled  back  with  rustle  of  serenest  satisfaction, 
And  Miss  Owl  sitting  with  Mr.  Hawk — 
Both  of  them  fond  of  partridges — fond  of  each 

other  on  the  sly — 

Lowered  'her  opera-glasses,  wiped  her  eyes, 
And  sighed  to  him:  "  Wasn't  that  grand! " 
And  some  of  the  younger  members, 
During  the    intermission,    adjourning    to  the 
lobby, 


Bubbles.  47 

So  far  forgot  their  manners  as  to  join  hands 

round 

And  dance  a  jubilee  jig  and  sing: 
"  At  last  prosperity  and  peace  for  all !  " 

Without  invidious  comparison,  and  speaking  as 

delicately  as  I  can, 
I  ask  you  now : 
Had  that  skunk  been  a  lion,  and  acted  as  he 

did, 

Would  they  have  loved  him  more  ? 
And,  if  not,  need  the  lion  on  reflection 
Look  far  to  find  an  answer  to  his  question : 
"  What  is  the  reason  they  all  hate  me  so?  " 

BUBBLES. 

BUBBLES,  only  bubbles, 

Bubbles  lighter  than  air, 

Take  them,  break  them, 

There  is  nothing  there. 


Nothing,  only  nothing, 

Nothing  to  you  or  to  me — 

But  see  their  beautiful  coloring, 

And  see  their  beautiful  shaping, 

And  see  their  beautiful  motion, 

Fool  without  fancy,  see! 


48  Primrose  Diplomacy. 

They  float,  they  float,  they  float 
Into  the  higher  air; 

They  catch  the  eyes  of  my  brothers 
Down  in  the  darkness  there. 


My  brothers  rouse  from  their  darkness 
And  wonder  what  they  are; 
My  brothers  rise  and  follow  them 
As  the  wise  men  followed  the  Star. 


My  poor  little  bubbles  rise  higher 

To  the  breeze  of  the  twilight  born; 

My  brothers  go  chasing  after  them 
Into  the  golden  morn. 


SAMPLE. 

I  CAN  tell  when  I  look  in  a  book  in  a  minute, 
Its  weakness  by  judging  the  weakest  thing  in 
it. 

CHILDREN.  , 

O  SOUL,  who  knows  no  music! 
O  Soul,  with  no  sense  of  sound ! 
You  laugh  at  my  idle  verses, 
You  pull  them  down  to  the  ground. 


Children.  49 

You  bury  them  underneath  you, 
You  sit  with  an  airy  sneer 
And  think  of  the  songs  beneath  you, 
You  smile  as  you  see  my  tear. 

But  you  smile  too  soon,  Lord  love  you ; 

My  tear  is  a  tear  of  glee; 

For  there  sit  my  songs  above  you 

In  that  golden  apple  tree. 

And  I  am  sure  whatever  song  I  sing 

I  have  heard  it  before. 
You  could  not  else,  for  there  is  no  new  thing 

Upon  this  shore. 
How  glad  I  am  to  know ! 
I  love  the  old  things  so. 

I  am  a  child  of  Sill  and  of  Lanier — 
Poor,  pale,  unrecognizable,  I  fear — 
Yet  in  my  heart  so  warm  the  feelings  thrill 
Towards  both  of  them — Lanier  and  Sill — 
That  were  they  here  and  felt  that  ruddy  glow, 
I  know  that  they  would  say  I  might  say  so! 

They  both  are  here — Sill  and  Lanier — 
The  East,  the  West — and  both  the  best — 
The  North,  the  South — speak  through  my 
mouth ! 

O  that  their  songs  unsung 
Might  light  upon  my  tongue ! 


5o  Primrose  Diplomacy. 


THE  CAMEL'S  BACK. 

THIS  is  too  much 
For  the  critic  to  touch, 
And  the  writer  of  such 
Would  most  certainly  sing 
Almost  any  old  thing. 

Critic  cast  on  the  shelf, 
You're  an  old  thing  yourself ; 
And  you're  one  of  the  best 
That  I  love  with  the  rest ; 
But  in  you  were  my  trust, 
I'd  be  mist,  must  and  dust. 

SINE  QUA  NON. 

I  WRITE  of  my  vagrant  verses. 
You  frown  as  you  ask  me,  Why  ? 
And  my  answer  true  and  terse  is : 
"  Who'd  write  of  them,  if  not  I  ?  " 

THE  FALSE  WITNESS. 

WE'RE  trying  a  case  before  the  bar  of  heaven. 

Where  is  the  prisoner?     What  is  the  charge? 

The  prisoner  is  a  peasant  with  a  home-spun 
coat; 

And  he  is  charged  with  being  some  two  cen 
turies  behind  the  times. 


The  False  Witness.  51 

Hand  me  the  statutes,  Clerk; 

Let  me  look  up  the  point. 

What  penalty  does  the  law  fix  for  that  crime? 

The  rule  is  new,  your  Honor,  last  page,  last 

book ; 
A  capital  crime,  the  guilty  shot  to  death. 

Where  is  the  accusing  witness  ? 

That  red-faced  gentleman  with  the  bull-dog 

lip: 

He  has  his  belt  and  knife  and  pistol  on, 
And  you  can  hear  the  clink  of  coin 
As  he  goes  swaggering  round, — 
He  is  the  prosecuting  witness. 

And  how  about  the  red-faced  gentleman  ? 
Is  he  behind  the  times  ? 
At  leaist  two  thousand  years ; 
He's  living  back  in  the  age  of  blood  and  rapine, 
When  fraud  and  force,  not  men,  were  domi 
nant. 
He  is  two  thousand  years  behind  the  times. 

I  do  not  care  to  hear  his  evidence. 

Dismiss  the  charge,  let  the  accused  go  free. 

Enter  a  charge  against  the  red-faced  gentle 
man; 

Bailiff,  put  on  the  cuffs;  hustle  him  down 
below. 


52  Primrose  Diplomacy. 


THE  BEST  EVIDENCE. 

A  HUNDRED  thieves  descried  a  Treasury 
Presided  over  by  a  Patriarch 
Whose  firm  fidelity  for  many  years 
Protected  it  from  them  and  such  as  they. 
They  must  not  be  denied — nay,  would  not  be; 
And  so  with  patient,  educative  mind 
They  set  about  to  circumvent  the  man, 
By  working  up  a  situation  meet 
To  bring  the  quick  fulfilment  of  their  aim. 
No  course  was  left  untried,   no  means  were 

spared, 

Nor  as  to  kind  of  means  were  questions  asked. 
At  last,  about  the  height  of  their  attempt, 
They  lifted  up  a  mighty  cry  of  "  Fraud;  " 
"  Corrupt  old  rascal ;  down  with  such  a  wretch ; 
Advance  the  banner  of  reform ;  remove  abuse ; 
Give  light  and  civilized  endeavor  way." 
Under  that  flag,  with  overwhelming  rush, 
Descending  on  the  Treasury  they  came, 
Banished  the  Patriarch,    seized    the    hoarded 

coin, 
And    thenceforth    managed    it    for  'them  and 

theirs. 

"  Now,  in  the  name  of  Justice,"  some  one  peeps 
With  bated  breath  and  'half-averted  eye, 


Per  Alium.  S3 

"  O  Mighty  Thieves,  how  did  you  prove  him 

false? 
How  did  you  know  the  Patriarch  corrupt?" 

"  You  squeamish,  quizzical,  old-fogy  fool ! 
Blind  to  the  light  of  Progress  and  her  ways ! 
Drag  on  the  car  of  Empire  in  her  course! 
Encourager  of  treason,  foe  to  loyalty! 
How  did  we  know  the  Patriarch  corrupt? 
How  could  we  better  know,  O  Hard  to  Please? 
You     ass!      Twas    we    corrupted    him  our 
selves!" 

PER  ALIUM. 

Do  I  know  Greek?     No,  not  a  bit, 
But  Matthew  knows  enough  of  it 
For  any  three,  and  so  you  see 
He  knows  enough  for  you  and  me. 

Do  I  know  Latin?     Not  at  all, 

But  Matthew  Arnold  knows  it  all, 

And  so  I  let  the  Latin  go 

To  learn  some  things  he  doesn't  know. 

No  German  and  no  French  I  know, 
I  know  no  Italiano. 
But  Matthew  knows  them  every  one, 
And  so  I'm  back  where  I  begun, 


54  Primrose  Diplomacy. 

Matthew's  my  language  and  my  style; 
I  leave  them  him,  while  I  meanwhile 
Exploit  myself,  content  to  see 
Matthew  called  Matthew  and  me  me. 


FREEDOM. 

You  tell  me  that  I  must  conform ; 

And    blinded    with    ignorance,    indolence    or 

cowardice, 
I  begin  to  conform ; 

I  find  one  wing  is  lame — it  is  broken — 
I  cannot  fly  so  high,  so  straight  or  so  free — 
I  strike  against  rock  and  tree — 
I  am  nearing  the  ground; 
I  make  my  conformity  complete : 
Both  wings  are  broken, — 
I  am  on  my  face  in  the  dust. 


Give  me  freedom  complete : 
And  with  glad  wings  I  soar  into  the  azure  air ; 
I  face  the  eye  of  the  Sun  with  unshrinking  eye; 
I  sail  straight  into  the  front  of  the- Storm, 
And  ride  upon  him  or  baffle  him,  as  I  please; 
Nature  and  God  and  the  Universe  and  Eternity 
Are  mine. 


Join  the  Cry.  55 

JOIN  THE  CRY ! 
HEAR  the  deep  boom  of  the  rallying-cry ! 

An  answer  from  the  canyon,  an  echo  from  the 

rocks, 

A  dozen  echoes  tossed  from  the  mountain-side, 
A  score  flung  from  the  shore  of  the  lake, 
The  bank  of  the  river,  from  the  depths  of  the 

solemn  wood, 

The  caves,  the  hills,  the  bush,  the  forest 
All  give  up    their    denizens,    hundreds    from 

everywhere. 

Listen  to  the  hurrying,  scurrying  feet ! 
See  the  black  cloud  gathering,  careering ! 
Now  the  whole  pack  sweeping  onward  in  full 
cry! 

Hear  the  chorus    of    the    free    wolves  of  the 
plains ! 

What  do  you  kill  to-night,  free  wolves  of  the 
plains  ? 

To-night  we  kill  the  royal  lion;  join  the  cry, 
press  on! 


56  Primrose  Diplomacy 

Is  the  royal  lion  safe  game  for  the  free  wolves 
of  the  plains? 

Safe  game  or  death;  join  the  cry,  press  on! 

The  royal  lion  has  gone  mad, 

And  raging  down  out  of  his  own  preserves 

Threatens  the  life  and  liberty  of  every  beast — • 

Join  the  cry !     Join  the  cry ! 

Sharpen  your  fangs !     Press  on ! 

Or  soon  there  will  be  neither  wolf  nor  freedom 

left! 
Join  the  cry !     Join  the  cry !    Join  the  cry ! 

THE  TOUCHSTONE. 

FLOG  of  necessity,  hope  of  humanity, 
Therefore  the  dollar  is  sign  of  grace. 

Laxness  of  luxury,  bane  of  humanity : 

Therefore  the  dollar  wears  hell's  grimace. 

Where  does  the  hope  end,  and  where  does  the 
hell  end? 

That  is  the  question  for  you  and  for  me. 
Love  is  the  talisman,  love  is  the  godsend : 

That  is  sufficient  for  you  and  for  me. 

Be  every  dollar  devoted  to  righteousness ; 

Let  every  dollar  be  earned  for  the  same; 
Queer  every  coin  that  is  tainted  with  selfish 
ness; 

Stamp  every  piece  with  humanity's  name. 


Save  My  Cecil.  57 


STRABISMUS. 


way  we? 
Coin  or  kith? 
Kimberley  ? 
Or  Ladysmith? 

CLAIRVOYANCE. 

NEITHER  view 

On  either  hand; 

Only  through. 

The  Rand!     The  Rand! 

SAVE  MY  CECIL. 

SIR  JOSEPH,    have  you    heard  from  Brother 
Cecil? 

Upon  my  soul  and  honor  I  have  not. 

Sir  Joseph,  do   you    wage    this    war  for  dia 
monds  ? 

Sir  Joseph,  'has  Sir  Cecil's  diamond  combine 
Its  grip  upon  the  helm  of  British  State? 

Upon  my  soul  and  honor  I  do  not, 


58  Primrose  Diplomacy. 

Damn  you,  be  still — I  beg  your  pardon— 
Upon  my  heart,  my  soul,  my  honor, 
And  every  holy  thing,  I  swear 
And  swear  again  that  it  has  not. 


Sir  Joseph,  where  shall  I  drive  the  army  first  ? 


Sir  Redvers,  drive  the  army  first  and  quick  to 
Kimberley. 


Sir  Joseph,  the  road  to  Kimberley  is  blocked, 
The  strategy  is  bad,  I  cannot  turn  the  flanks, 
And  it  will  cost  us  rivers  of  blood 
To  drive  the  army  first  and  quick  to  Kimberley. 


To  hell  with  strategy  and  blood ! 

Turning  the  flanks  be  damned ! 

Drive  straight  to  Kimberley, 

For  there  my  Cecil  and  his  diamonds  and  his 

combine  are, 

And  I  must  save  them  first, 
Tho'  England  and  the  flower  of  tier  manhood 
Perish  in  black  disgrace. 


Save  first  my  Cecil ! 


Colenso,  59 


FITS. 

HE  isn't  a  Sir,  and  I  shouldn't  say  "  Damn," 

Tho'  they  fit  most  uncommonly  well ; 

Say  how,  Sir,  less  you,  Sir,  and  "  Damme,"  I 

am 
To  fittingly  furniture  Hell? 


COLENSO. 

DOES  "pig-sticking"  make  a  manly  man? 
Does  killing  "  niggers  "  by  the  thousand  make 

an  able  general? 
Rather  it  leaves  a  general  lacking  wit  to  plan 

a  battle : 

He  only  knows  to  stand  at  farthest  range, 
Safe-screened  behind  a  hill, 
And  grind  an  engine-gun,  devised  and  made 

for  him 
By  some  mechanic  who  at  home  bleeds  with 

war  taxes, 
And  pump  into   the   distant,    all    bewildered, 

helpless,  undefended  masses 
Hellish  and  cruel  death. 
But  meeting  Strategy  one  day  perchance, 
He  does  not  even  recognize  him, 
But  running  up  against  him  for  a  savage 


60  Primrose  Diplomacy. 

Saluted  him  as  a  savage — 

Receives  uncommon  warm  return  salute — 

Opens  wide  wondering  eyes — 

And  then  skedaddles. 

MYOPIA. 

HE  says  they  see  too  far. 
Indeed  their  sight  were  dim, 
Saw  they  not  far  enough 
To  see  through  him. 

SPION  KOP. 

JOUBERT  on  Spion  Kop  'mid  English  graves, 
Graves  made  but  yesterday  and  yet  the  waves 
Of  tropic  rain  have  wash'd  the  scanty  shroud 
Of  hasty  clods  from  off  that  hurried  crowd 
Of  sudden  sleepers.     Sadly  from  the  sight 
He  turns,  his  glasses  fixed  upon  the  plight 
Of  the  famed  British  army  there  below 
Escaping  headlong  through  Tugela's  flow. 
The  boastfulest  of  all  incompetents 
Commanding  those  bedraggled  regiments 
Conveys  them  through  the  river  where  it  runs 
Close  within  range  of  Joubert's  surest  guns. 
One  word  from    Toubert    and    the    shattered 

ranks 
Were  crushed  forever  on  Tugela's  banks; 


The  Higher  Civilization  61 

But  'hour  by  hour  the  broken  files  passed  by 
Beneath  his  gentle  and  commanding  eye, 
And  not  a    gun    spoke    from    that  frowning 

height; 

Only  'his  mercy  saved  them  in  their  flight. 
So  rank  by  rank  the  regiments  crossM  o'er 
Until  the  rear-guard  reach' d  the  farther  shore. 
And  then  the  leader  of  that  sorry  host 
Flash' d  to  the  Queen  his  pitiable  boast. 


THE  HIGHER  CIVILIZATION. 

THE  charge  had  reached  the  trenches 

And  the  men  sprang  out  of  sight : 

We  heard  the  rattling  down  of  arms 

In  pitiful  surrender  ; 

And  then  the  cries  for  quarter — 

Then  the  shrieks  of  agony. 

There  were  no  prisoners  taken ; 

There  were  no  wounded  there : 

But  at  the  roll-call  in  the  morn 

Full  sixteen  glorious  Dublin  Fusileers 

Held  proudly  forth  to  our  adoring  gaze 

Their  white  blades  drenched  in  deepest  red. 

And  then  our  souls  expanded 

With  a  sense  of  joy  most  exquisite. 


62  Primrose  Diplomacy. 


FLAMES. 

AT  last  they  begin  to  understand ; 

At  last  -they  begin  to  see  what  the  Gods  are 

about. 

I  see  a  gleam  in  the  eye  of  the  West, 
A  gleam  in  the  eye  of  the  North, 
A  gleam  in  the  eye  of  the  East, 
A  leaping  flash  from  the  eye  of  the  South. 
I  know  they  are  ready  to  come. 
Come  East;  Come  West;  Come  North;  Come 

South ! 
"  We  are  here ;  we  are  come." 

Halt !     Ground — Arms ! 

There  is  business  to  do  to-night ; 

There's  the  British  Devil  to  fight. 

He's  been  killing  helpless  savages  so  long 

With  engine  guns, 

That  all  the  manhood  he  ever  had  is  gone, 

And  his  wits  are  going  too. 

Demented  and  maniacal  a-raging  round, 

Administers  Pax  Britannica  to  every  patient 

fool; 
Stealing  the  coins  from  off  the  dead  eyes  of  the 

weak. 
Are  you  ready  to  march  ? 


Flames.  63 

"  We  are  ready." 

The  work  will  be  bloody  and  black, 
And  many  will  never  come  back. 
Are  you  ready  to  march  ? 

"  We  are  ready." 

Shoulder — Arms !  Forward — March !  Double- 
Quick  !  Double-Quick ! 

See  them  press  shoulder  to  shoulder  and  march 

Double-Quick ! 
And  see  the  reserves  uncalled  come  gathering 

thick ! 

Not  a  soul  in  the   country    but's  hearing  the 

sound — 
Excepting  King    Mack    with    his    ear  to  the 

ground. 

O  Mack!  we  are  flying,  not  crawling,  along; 
Get  up  off  your  belly  and  list  to  our  song. 

Quick !     Answer  the  call ! 

Fling  the  Orange  flame  to  the  breeze — 
The  Orange  is  next  to  the  Red — 
The  Red  of  the  Red,  White  and  Blue; 
And  the  Green  is  not  far,  nor  the  Irish  far, 
And  next  to  the  Green,  the  Blue, — 


64  Primrose  Diplomacy. 

The  Blue  of  the  Red,  White  and  Blue. 

And  the  Germans  will  give  us  the  Yellow  too; 

And  the  White  is  all. 

0  Brute !     What  is  it  the  Century  new 
Will  bring  to  view  ? 

Is  it  God  ?     Or  the  Devil  Himself  and  Hell 
And  You? 

The  flames,  they  leap,  they  spread,  unite, 
They  turn  to  a  conflagration  bright. 
Till  the  morning  light  shall  be  purest  white, 
To  blast  the  black  of  the  British  night. 

MATES. 

BEST  of  the  birds  that  my  heart  doth  love 
Are  the  laughing  lark  and  the  mourning  dove ; 
With  some  mystical  tie  they  go  faring  together 
In  every  season,  in  every  weather; 

1  hear  the  laugh,  then  I  hear  the  moan, — 
Then  moan,  then  laugh,  they  are  never  alone. 
Always  the  moan  has  a  shade  of  glee ; 
Always  the  laugh  seems  sad  to  me. 

Oh  why  do  you  mourn,  O  mourning  dove? 

"  I  mourn  for  my  soul  is  so  full  of  love." 

"  And  I  laugh,"  sings  the  lark  from  the  branch 

above, 
"  I  laugh  for  my  soul  is  so  full  of  love." 


Mates.  65 

Oh,  my  beloved,  I  long  for  your  joy, 

Perfect  and  purified,  holy  joy, 

Freed  by  the  fire  from  all  alloy. 

The  only  view  that  is  clear  of  fear 

Is  the  view  that  is  through  the  purest  tear. 

And  the  tears  of  joy  and  sorrow  flow 
Through  the  one  same  well  from  the  depth 

below; 

But  the  tears  of  sorrow  must  foremost  flow. 
You  must  mourn,    my   beloved,    must  mourn, 

must  mourn. 
Repent,  repent !     You  must  mourn,  you  must 

mourn. 

I  know  that  you  say  that  you  will  not  mourn ; 
You  rage,  you  fight,  you  rebel,  you  scorn, 
You  harden  your  heart  and  you  will  not  mourn. 
But  at  last  you  must  humble  your  heart  and 

mourn, 
And    yield    and    repent    and   bow    down  and 

mourn ; 

Then  the  tear,  then  the  rainbow,  then  all  burn 
ing  white  light — 

And  the  lark  leaps  forth,  for  he  can't  keep  still, 
He  is  tipsy  with  joy,  he  jumps,  and  tumbles, 

and  bubbles  and  trills  his  thrill — 
Lo,  the  morn! 


66  Primrose  Diplomacy. 


BONNIE  BROWN  BIRD. 

BONNIE  brown  bird  in  the  ivied  eaves, 
Why  do  you  fly  at  the  window-pane? 
Fluttering  back  as  your  hope  deceives, 
Turning  and  facing  the  glass  again  ? 

Is  it  your  soul  that  you  see  in  there? 
Is  it  the  soul  that  you'd  wish  to  be? 
Stay!     It  is  naught  but  a  shadow  fair, 
Fair,  but  as  false  as  a  fantasy. 

Peace!    Tis  myself  I  must  meet,  I  must  meet; 
Cease!     'Tis  myself  that  I  see  in  the  glass; 
Smiles  to  me,  weeps  to  me,  greets  when  I  greet; 
Flutters  and  goes  as  I  turn  and  pass. 

Soul  of  my  soul,  I  will  come,  I  will  come, 
Beat  with  my  wings  tho'  I  must  till  I  die ; 
Some  call  thee  shadow  and  false  call  thee  some; 
Well  do  I  know  thou  art  truer  than  I. 

THE  SUN,  THE  MOON  AND  THE  DOGS. 

I  LAUGH  at  the  critics  of  my  messages ; 
They  are  not  present  when  I  get  my  messages ; 
They  do  not  know  from  whom  I  get  my  mes 
sages; 


The  Presence  67 

They  think  that  the  messages  are  mine ; 

They  think  that  they  are  criticising  me. 

I  laugh  and  laugh  and  laugh — 

Dogs  baying  the  moon ! 

And  the  moon  laughs,  too — 

But  the  sun,  unmoved,  goes  shining  on. 

SIMONY. 

HAVE  I  a  right  to  copyright  the  words  of  the 

Lord? 

A  Presence  stands  beside  me  in  the  night 
And  dictates  words  of  fire. 
Have  I  a  right  in  the  morning  light 
To  hurry  and  file  a  copyright, 
As  who  should  say : 
"  I  am  the  Lord ;  these  are  my  words ; 
Let  no  man  hear  them  till  I  get  my  pay  "  ? 
Sell  them  ?     Sell  them  ?    I  have  no  right  to  sell 

them ; 

For  I  who  received  them  know  full  well 
That  never  a  one  is  mine  to  sell 
I  am  a  messenger,  that  is  all. 

THE  PRESENCE. 

HERE  is  the  very  spot,  the  very  hour, 
Where  yesternight  and  night  before  and  before 
that  and  before  that, 


ON  Primrose  Diplomacy. 

The  Presence  came. 

Hush,  he  is  here  again  ! 

1  cannot  see  his  form, 

1  cannot  hear  the  rustle  of  his  wings, 

.mo-c  thrill  of  power  that  shakes  my 

Soul ! 

Put  off  my  shoes. 

O  Presence,  thou  art  holy,  holy  must  be, 
Or  couUlst  not  raise  such  holy  joy  in  me. 
Joy  !      1  am  holy  too.  holy  must  be, 
Or.  Presence,  \vouldst  thou  nightly  visit  : 
Xay.    dross,   dross!      Presence,    1    am   dross! 

Burn  me !  Burn  me ! 
Make  me  thy  living  coal  to  spread  the  light  to 

groping  men. 

Spring  to  the  desk,  seize  on  the  pencil. 

With  quaking  hands  write  down  the  message 

quick. 

Lest  it  be  lost  and  men  go  groping  on. 
Rest,   weary   clay,   close  up   thine   eyes   and 

sleep — 

0  canst  thou  sleep  when  Heaven  is  abroad  ? 
Nay,  nay!     I  need  not  sleep,  I  need  not  rest, 

I  need  not  anything, 

1  am  so  filled  full  of  this  newest  joy ! 

And  is  the  message  done?     Presence,  I  cling 
to  thee — 


Truth,  Justice,  Liberty.  69 

O  go  not-— Go!   Go!    Go!   Thou'rt   needed 

there! 

There  are  so  many,  many  groping  men, 
And  thou  must  light  more  living  coals 
And  haste  them  speeding 


Whilst    I    with   radiant   heart   go   dreaming 

through  the  day, 

Filled  with  thy  message  and  thy  memory, 
And  waiting,  eager,  till  the  hour  come — O 

speed  the  hour — 
When  at  this  self-same  spot 
I  kneel  again. 

CUM  GRANO. 

THE  metal  of  one  sent 
To  cry  a  message  louder, 
Were  sometimes  better  spent 
In  buying  coal-tar  powder. 


TRUTH,  JUSTICE,  LIBERTY. 

THE  Queen  was  seated  on  her  golden  throne, 
Her  purple  robe  in  ample  folds  descending; 
Her  flatterers  and  counsellors  and  ministers 
Standing  or  kneeling  near. 


70  Primrose  Diplomacy. 

They  ushered  to  her  audience  a  man, 
A  tall  rude  peasant  in  a  homespun  coat, 
Erect,  respectful,  fearless,  manly,  strong, 
The  steady  fire  of  freedom  in  his  eye, 
To  state  petition  to  her  Majesty: 

O  Queen !     I  have  a  country  and  a  people, 
A  country  and  a  people  bought  with  blood, 
Sown  with  the  tears  and  toil  of  many  years. 
It  is  a  poor  rude  country  and  the  people  poor 

and  rude, 

But  honest  bread  of  labor  every  day 
They  eat  together  in  their  simple  homes ; 
Within  their  hearts  thy  self-same  Bible  flames, 
And  nightly  as  the  weary  toilers  lay 
Prone  on  the  desert  gazing  into  heaven, 
Into  the  splendor  of  the  southern  stars, 
They  own  no  ruler  but  the  Lord  of  Hosts. 

O  Queen !     Thou  too  hast  many  people  there, 
Different  from  us,  people  we  do  not  like, 
And  they  complain  that  we  curtail  their  rights; 
And  doubtless  in  the  difference  of  our  ways 
Hardships  arise.     We  know  we  must  concede, 
As  time  goes  on,   something,   nay,   much,  to 

them. 

Changes  must  come,  we  know  it. 
Changes  have  come  and  more  must  come, 
A  little  patience  would  adjust  it  all. 


The  Queen's  Feast.  71 

Now  come  thine  officers  and  say  that  we  must 

change, 
And  change  at  once,   or  they  will  make  us 

change. 

Your  Majesty,  my  people  are  free  people; 
Liberty  is  their  life; 

And  they  will  die  before  they  yield  to  force. 
Stay  the  decree,  your  Majesty,  stay  the  decree, 
For  in  the  name  of  Liberty,  I  speak, 
And  in  the  name  of  Truth  and  Justice,  speak. 


He  ceased,  the  Court  grew  silent,  as  the  Queen 
Glanced  towards  her  ministers — then  sudden 

set  her  face 

Hard  and  responseless  to  his  patient  plea : 
"  Liberty?    Liberty?    There  is  no  Liberty  but 

mine; 

Justice  ?     Justice  ?     I  know  not  Justice. 
Truth  ?     Truth  ?     I  know  not  Truth. 
I  have  an  army  and  a  navy. 
Go  tell  thy  people  to  obey  my  will." 


THE  QUEEN'S  FEAST. 

FOR  patient  centuries,  the  world  has  toiled  to 
wards  peace. 


72  Primrose  Diplomacy. 

Blast  of  the  trumpet !     Burst  of  the  booming 

gun! 
At  last  the  Prince  of  Peace  begins  his  reign ! 

Bow  low,  O  saddened  heart!  Bow  low  with 
shame ! 

The  sound  of  awful  conflict ; 

A  nation  fighting  for  its  life  against  o'erwhelm- 
ing  odds. 

Bring  up  your  fifty  thousands,  call  for  more; 

Wheel  into  place  the  cannon,  load  with  the  lyd 
dite  shell, 

Blow  the  air  full  of  hands,  feet,  limbs,  heads, 
bleeding  trunks; 

Fix  now  the  bayonet,  charge,  charge,  hear  not 
the  cry  for  mercy  ; 

No  quaYter  yield,  drive  home  the  blade ; 

See  the  red  blood  spout  forth ; 

Roll  wallowing  in  blood, 

Lift  up  your  throats  and  roar ! 

This  is  the  feast  of  the  most  Christian  Queen! 

Pass  round  the  titles  and  the  medals,  gentle 
men  !  Pass  round  the  iron  cross ! 


The  Dream  of  Empire.  73 


THE  DREAM  OF  EMPIRE. 

DEAD  ?     Dead  ?     Yes,  dead !     Bury  him  deep ! 
Gather  the  fragments  of  the  mangled  form — 
'Tis  he,  'tis  he!     Here  is  the  same  rough  coat 
Shot  into  tatters;  yes,  'tis  he!  the  same,  his 

face — 

O,  look  not  there ;  look  not  upon  his  face ! 
Roll  up  the  fragments  in  the  tattered  coat 
And  throw  the  shapeless  bundle  in  the  grave; 
Cover  him  deep,  cover  him  deep  and  deeper ; 
Pile  up  the  earth  and  sow  it  thick  with  salt, 
Plough  and  cross-plough  it  in. 

Sleep,  gentle  Queen,  sleep  the  sweet  sleep  of 
Peace. 

She  dreams :  she  >sees  a  plain  in  Africa  ; 

'Tis  night;  upon  the  plain  a  salt-sown  grave — 

Her  startled  eyes  are  staring  wide — 

A  gaunt  form  rises  from  the  salt-sown  grave — 

'Tis   he!  'tis   he!    the   same   rough   shot-torn 

coat — 

Her  blanching  cheeks  turn  to  a  deadlier  pale — - 
Shakes  from  his  coat  the  salt  and  blood-stained 

earth 

And  strides  away; 
She  sees  him  tread  his  old  familiar  paths 


74  Primrose  Diplomacy. 

Straight  to  an  humble  cottage,  where  the  dogs 
And  cattle  bay  and  low  him  welcome, 
The  door  flies  wide,  and  wife  and  children 
Fall  on  his  neck  and  wreep. 

Thousands  such  graves;  thousands  such 
homes ;  thousands  such  hearts  ! 

And  not  in  Africa  alone,  but  everywhere. 

You  sowed  not  salt,  you  sowed  the  earthquake 
there. 

THE  PURPLE  ROBE. 

AND  still  she  dreams;  again  upon  the  throne, 
Her  purple  robe  in  ample  folds  descending. 
The  sun  is  dark ;  the  air  is  full  of  smoke ; 
Trembling,  her  ministers,  now  ashen-hued, 
Are  cowering  around;    without,   from  every 

quarter, 

Come  sounds  of  great  convulsion 
As  if  of  nature  in  primeval  throes ; 
North,   south,  east,  west,   from  every  corner 

come 

Outcry  and  crash  of  battle,  falling  of  towers, 
Bellow  of  guns.     Nearer,  nearer,  nearer 
Rolls  the  storm. 

From  out  the  din  and  darkness  comes  a  form — 
'Tis  he!  'Tis  he,  the  same!  the  ragged,  shot- 
torn  coat, 


The  Purple  Robe.  75 

The  face — O,  look  not  there!  O,  look  not  on 

his  face! 

Straight  towards  the  throne  he  strides 
Up  to  the  very  steps — he  mounts — he  leans — 
She  looks  around  for  rescue,  but  no  rescue 

there — 

Her  ministers  have  fled — 
No  friendly  eye,  but  hate,  hate,  only  hate,  hate 

everywhere. 
Falls  now  the  crown,  totters  the  throne — she 

flees,  she  flees— Stay !  Stay ! 
His  red  right  hand  is  clutching  on  her  robe. 


"  Lord  God  Almighty,  God  of  Mercy,  spare ! 
I  am  not  guilty,  'twas  my  ministers, 
I  did  the  bidding  of  my  ministers, 
God,  God  of  Truth  and  Justice,  save! " 


Justice?     Justice?     You  know  not  Justice. 
Truth?     Truth?     You  know  not  Truth. 


And  when  the  morning  came,  came,  too,  the 

bearers 

And  bore  the  lifeless  royal  clay 
To  cold  and  unwept  tomb. 


76  Primrose  Diplomacy. 


BURY  THEM  DEEP. 

DEAD?     Dead?    Yes,  dead,  thank  God!    Bury 

them  deep ! 

Gather  the  fragments,  galher  the  fragments  up. 
Here  is  the  purple  robe  bloody  and  torn; 
Gather  the  fragments  in  its  ample  folds. 
Throw  in  the  wreckage  of  the  golden  throne; 
In  with  the  carcasses  of  the  ministers — 
No  wound  on  them — frightened  to  death — 
They  keep  safe  distance  from  the  firing  line — 
Throw  in  the  venal  law-makers  and  judges; 
Drag  out  the  men  who  from  behind  the  scenes 
With  corrupt  hands  direct  the  course  of  State; 
Throw  in  the  gatherer  of  ill-got  gains, 
False  poets,  prophets,  politicians,  stewards  of 

the  judgment, 

Renegade  servants  of  the  Prince  of  Peace, 
Prating  of  Holy  War — 
Throw  them  all  heaping  in. 

Roll  them  all  up  in  the  torn  purple  folds — 
No  need  to  dig  a  grave — this  belching  crevice 

here — 

Roll  up  the  reeking  bundle,  cast  it  in- 
Deep,  deep !      Hark,  hark !      You  cannot  hear 

the  fall ! 
Try  not  to  fill  it  up ;  no  need  to  sow  with  salt ; 


Bury  them  Deep.  77 

Trembles  the  earth  with  sullen  final  rumble 
As  of  some  beast  of  vengeance  satisfied, 
Belches  again  one  mighty  tongue  of  flame, 
And  closes  her  grim  jaws! 


Sing  now  the  paean  of  humanity. 

If  war  must  be,  turn  it  and  use  it  now, 

Upon  the  wretches  who  create  conditions  that 

require  it. 

Base  is  the  public  officer  who  takes  a  bribe  ; 
Baser  the  groomed  and  shining  gentleman  who 

gives  the  bribe  ; 
Basest  of  all  is  he  who  gives  or  takes  official 

influence 

To  further  private  aims,  and  says  it  is  no  bribe. 
On  these  and  such  as  these  turn  loose  your 

Maxim  guns. 

Destroy  dishonesty  and  we  will  give  you  peace ; 
Give  us  the  truth  and  we  will  wipe  out  war 
And  turn  its  millions  wasted  men  and  treasure 
Into  the  arts  of  peace  and  charity. 


Patience,  O  restless  soul! 
Patience,  O  bleeding  heart ! 
Patience,    O    dying   patriot,    fighting   the   ty 
rant, — 
The  time  of  God  will  come! 


78  Primrose  Diplomacy. 


THE  WORLD'S  MASTER. 

MY  Master,  when  I  was  a  babe, 
My  mother  consecrated  me  to  thee, 
Her  love,  her  tears,  her  simple  prayer 
Gave  my  young  life  into  thy  care. 

My  Master,  sitting  at  my  mother's  side, 

My  father,  sister,  brothers  near  me,  I,  a  little 

boy, 

Enraptured  listened  to  the  gray-haired  pastor, 
Drank  in  thy  story  of  the  heavenly  joy. 

My  Master,  studying  thy  holy  word, 
In  the  fresh  zeal  and  prospect  of  my  youth, 
True  bread  of  life  to  me  thy  story, 
All  of  thy  teachings  radiant  truth. 

My  Master,  when  the  shadow  settled, 
On  the  dread  night  when  mother  died — 
Settled  ?     Nay,  fled  !     A  streaming  glory ! 
For  thou  wert  standing  at  her  side. 

My  Master,  standing  at  my  mothers  grave, 
I  looked  forth  on  the  deep  blue  sounding  sea, 
Off  to  the  purple  mountain,  heard  the  choral 

Spring, 
And  turning,  found  me  face  to  face  with  thee. 


The  World's  Master.  79 

My  Master,  thou  hast  stood  beside  me 
Throughout  all  illness,  vigor,  courage,  fear, 
And  whatsoever  agony  betide  me, 
Always   the   same   strong   presence   standing 
near. 


My  Master,  when  my  little  children 

Come  running,   throw  their  arms   about  my 

neck, 

Their  mother  smiling  as  they  greet  me-y- 
Into  whose  care  can  I  confide  the  keeping  of 

my  loved  ones 
Save  to  the  Master  who  has  stood  by  me? 

My  Master,  thou  art  dead,  they  say. 
My  Master  dead?     When  did  he  die? 
When  did  he  die?     He  never  lived 
Save  as  a  glowing  phantom  of  thine  eye. 

How  real  to  me  the  angels  at  thy  birth ! 

How  real  to  me  the  wise  men  and  the  shepherds 

and  the  star ! 
How  real  to  me  the  stall,  the  smiling  mother, 

the  sweet  babe ! 

How  real  to  me  the  scenes  of  all  thy  life! 
How  real  the  hope  that  thou  wert  Prince  of 

Peace, 
And  that  thy  promised  Kingdom  had  appeared ! 


80  Primrose  Diplomacy. 

Cry  out,  cry  out !     Forsaken  ones,  cry  out ! 

Hark  to  the  deep  soft  sighing  of  the  sobbing, 

sobbing  Sea ! 
The  pity  of  the  Sea,  the  pity  that  is  something 

more  than  pity ! 
A  sigh  that  is  a  sigh  and  is  a  moan,  the  moan 

a  moan  and  menace, 
And  that  menace  is  a  menace  that  might  rise 

into  a  roar ! 

Sing  now  the  lyric  of  the  Star ! 
Shining  so  beautiful  afar ! 
[What  is  thy  message,  Shining  Star? 
"  I  am  the  Signal  of  the  Lord ! 
I  am  the  Flashing  of  His  Sword !  " 

Our  Master  gone,  forgotten,  dead, 
Deep  beyond  hope  of  resurrection  call, — 
What  have  they  given  to  us  in  his  stead 
To  strengthen,  purify  and  save  us  all  ? 

Nothing !     Look  forth  upon  the  seething  world 
Sinning  and  suffering,  bleeding,  dying,  dead. 
Hell,  only  hell,  damnable  hell !     Nothing  but 

hell  I 
Black  falseness,  greed  green  with  envy,  hatred, 

cruelty  red. 


The  World's  Master.  81 

Even  the  men  calling  themselves  thy  ministers 
Prone  on  their  faces,  licking  the  feet  of  the 

Golden  Calf, 

Worshipping  wealth  and  force, 
Rising  in  haste  to  put  their  shoulders 
To  the  wheel  of  the  Juggernaut  Car ! 


My  Master,  if  thou  didst  not  live; 

My  Master,  if  thou  dost  not  live, — 

Who  is  this  standing  at  my  side 

At  midnight,  morning,  noon  and  eventide,  bid 
ding  me  speak, — 

Standing  with  flashing  eyes,  and  whip  in  hand, 
cleansing  thy  Father's  house? 


Lived,  lived  ?     Nay,  lives  forever  more ! 
The  only  hope  of  this  sad,  bleeding  world. 
Dead,  dead  ?     He  never  died !    He  cannot  die ! 
I  know  it  by  the  fire  raging  in  me  when  I  see 

injustice  done; 
I  know  it  by  the  deepening  pity  that  I  feel  for 

all  the  suffering  I  see; 
I  know  it  by  my  growing  hate  for  greed  of 

gold,  for  lies,  for  rank  hypocrisy, 
For  all  the  cringing,  fawning  slaves  who  toady 

to  the  holder  of  the  purse 
And  let  him  buy  their  honor  and  erect 
6 


82  Primrose  Diplomacy. 

Out  of  the  stones  hewn  for  the  Palace  of  Jus 
tice,  Truth  and  Liberty, 
A  fortress  dungeon  for  Humanity. 


He  is  not  dead. 

I  know  it  by  the  quicker  rallying  of  the  hosts 

of  righteousness — 
Hear  ye  not  them  ? 

The  low  murmur,  the  soft  moaning  of  the  sea 
Before  the  coming  storm  ? 
The   smooth   calm   checks,   and   then   a   little 

wave; 

Then  the  whole  mirror  broken  everywhere; 
Then     the     careering     white-maned     horses 

chafing, 
Cloud  filter'd  sunlight  flashing  on  the  serried 

columns  massing, 

The  deep  bass  of  the  booming  horn, 
The  roll  of  the  drums,  the  screaming  fife, 
The  wild  bugle  of  the  wind, 
And  then  all  trough  and  mountain,  tumult, 
Then  the  succeeding  surging  rollers  rising, 
Rising  to  the  seventh  mighty  brow — 
Lift  up  thy  crested  head,  O  Monarch ! 
Advance,  foam-crown' d,  with  rhythmic  rearing 
Higher,  higher  for  the  final  blow — 
Crash  into  atoms  all  this  citadel  of  vanity, 
O  Power  of  the  Sea! 


The  World's  Master.  83 

Lower  and  lower,  heaving,  heaving, 

The  deep-measured  breathing  of  a  mighty  pur 
pose  won, — 

Promise  of  peace, — 

Sinking  and  sinking,  lower,  lower, 

Then  again  advancing — again,  but  not  so 

high- 
Call  off  the  cohorts ! 

Eac'h  succeeding  swell  receding  lower,  lower. 

The  trough  and  mountain  gone, 

The  fretted  waves  grow  patient, 

Sinking  and  sinking  lower,  lower  still,. 

Unto  the  level  of  thy  perfect  calm. 

Mirror  of  Heaven. 

Then,  Peace. 


Child  of  the  stall,  youth  of  the  shop  and  temple, 
Man  of  the  mart,  the  field,  the  lake,  the  home, 

the  garden, — 
Man  of  the  Common  People — martyr  of  the 

Cross ! 

Leap  from  that  cross  into  the  glad-waiting  air, 
Fill  full  the  utmost  limits  of  the  star-crown' d 

firmament, 

Ineffable  and  universal  Saviour, 
Lord  God  of  Truth,  Lord  God  of  Justice ! 
Lord  God  of  Liberty,  Lord  God  of  Hosts ! 


Primrose  Diplomacy. 


SESAME. 

THE  song-birds  rose  and  left  this  chilly  clime 
To  seek  Heaven's  lattice  in  the  sweet  Spring 
time. 

But  Heaven's  Assessor  shut  them  out  unless 
Their  billets  were  initialled  "  E.  C.  S." 

SAINT  FRANCIS. 

WE  are  the  blood  of  the  pirate  Drake 

And  the  Quaker  rebel  grim ; 
We  do  not  quake  tho'  the  earthquake  shake, 

And  we  keep  the  "  Pelican  "  trim. 

Sir  Francis  died  on  his  darling  sea, 

He  went  to  sleep  on  his  sleeping  sea, 

For  the  sea  was  sober  and  very  still 

When  it  lost  his  soul  and  its  mighty  thrill. 

The  Quaker  calls  Francis  out  of  the  sea : 

"  Sir  Francis !     Sir  Francis !     Come  out 

of  the  sea ! 

There's  work  for  you  and  there's  work  for  me,. 
Come  up,  Sir  Francis,  come  plough  the 

blue, 
There's  work  for  me  and  there's  work  for  you." 


Saint  Francis.  85 

And  the  waters  wake  with  a  gala  glee, 

As  they  see  Sir  Francis  come  out  of  the 

sea, 
They  dance  and  sparkle  and  bound  and  swell, 

For  they  love  their  darling  pirate  well; 
They  summon  and  beckon  and  ready  make, 
They're  waiting  for  orders  from  Francis 
Drake. 

O  pirate  Francis,  we  love  you  so, 

We  offer  you  harbor  at  Francisco — 
You  almost  found  it  yourself,  you  know, — 

We  offer  you  freedom  to  come  and  go, 
To  outfit  and  man  without  let  or  pause, 

So  long,  as  you  sail  in  some  proper  cause ; 
But  drop  the  "  Sir," — we've  no  use  for  Sirs; 

We're 'hoping  soon  a  surcease  of  Sirs; 
Have  the  "  Sir  "  changed  "  Saint  "  by  the  min 
isters, 

Your  friends  the  Franciscan  ministers, 
The  old  Spanish  mission  ministers ; 

Get  rid  of  the  tawdry  title  taint, 
O  Drake  the  Pirate,  be  Drake  the  Saint. 

Saint  Francis  the  pirate  sailed  away 

From  the  shores  of  San  Francisco  Bay, 

Out  through  the  walls  of  the  Golden  Gate 

Straight  into  the  wind,  for  he  could  not 
wait; 


86  Primrose  Diplomacy. 

Not  a  rope  was  slack,  not  a  sail  did  lag, 

And  he  flung  to  the  breezes  an  Orange 

flag. 
Saint    Francis !    Saint    Francis !     Take    down 

that  rag ! 

O  what  do  you  do  with  an  Orange  flag  ? 
Your  sleep  in  the  sea  must  have  dulled  you 

much, 
You  seem  to  be  thinking  that  you  are 

Dutch ! 
Has  your  love  for  the  Queen  of  your  heart 

grown  less  ? 
Have  you  lost  your  love  for  your  good 

Queen  Bess  ? 
Why,  you  were  the  straightest  of  straightest 

true, 
Can  it  be  the  Great  Pirate  turns  traitor 

too? 
Saint   Francis!    Saint   Francis!    Come   back! 

Come  back ! 
You  ought  to  be  flying  the  Union  Jack ! 


Fear  not,  for  I  love  my  queen  no  less, 

I  still  shall  take  orders  from  good  Queen 
Bess. 

For  if  you  will  think  but  a  little  back, 

Queen  Bess  never  floated  the  Union  Jack, 

Queen  Bess  never  battled  for  tyranny, 


Saint  Francis.  87 

Queen  Bess  and  I  fought  for  the  right  to 

be  free; 
And  I  and  my  water-dogs  all  to  a  man 

Are  sailing  away  on  the  "  Pelican  " 
To  fight  for  that  right  and  for  nothing  less, 
And  we  take  our  papers  from  good  Queen 

Bess; 
Nor  Dutch  nor  English  can  own  the  sea; 

And,  before  I  am  English,  I'm  Free !    I'm 
Free! 


The  "  Pelican  "  galloped  with  breezy  lope, 

Straight  and  away  for  the  Cape  of  Good 

Hope : 

"  Ho!  Dutchman,  Ho!  "  he  is  shouting  clear; 
"  Ho !    Dutchman,  Ho !     You  need  have 

no  fear, 
We  re  ploughing  the  ocean  blue. 

You've  won  Queen  Bess  and  her  buccan 
eer, 
Hold  firm  a  little  till  we  get  near — 

And  the  Quakers  are  coming  too — 
Queen  Bess  and  I  and  my  dogs  have  cleared, 
We're  sailing  to  singe  the  Lion's  beard." 


Art  thou   s'hining   on   the  veldt   to-night,    O 

moon  ? 
What  see'st  thou  there? 


88  Primrose  Diplomacy. 

"  Bare-headed  peasant  warriors  bowed  deep  in 
prayer." 

See  the  great  white  thunder-clouds  revolving! 

Puffs  from  the  cannon  of  the  Mighty  God ! 

Bow  low,  O  Nineveh,  bow  low  with  shame  and 

fear! 
Bow  low  in  sackcloth  and  in  ashes  and  in 

dust ! 

Fall  prone  upon  your  face,  fall  prone  and  weep ! 
Repent,  repent!    Before  it  is  too  late,  re 
pent! 
Give  ear  unto  the  warning  of  the  Prophet  of 

the  Sea ! 
San  Francisco,  Dec.  if,  1899. 

HERESY. 

STEDMAN  has  no  word  of  me 
Because  he  never  heard  of  me. 
Unless  my  memory  be  dim, 
Till  now  I  never  heard  of  him — 
Mayhap  'tis  why  my  musing  brings 
Such  hapless  and  unheard  of  things. 
But  should  he  hear  me  even  now, 
He  would  omit  me  anyhow. 
I  keep  my  candle  from  his  shrine, 
To  give  it  better  chance  to  shine. 
Tho'  many  make  their  steady  strike 


Universalism.  89 

To  be  both  good  and  Stedmanlike, 
I'd  rather  study  to  be  free 
Unsteady  men  like  you  and  me. 

VICTORY. 

GREAT  BRITAIN  victor,  every  form  of  wrong 
That  she  has  stood  for  stands  then  full  in 
dorsed  ; 

Her  \fill  is  law,  not  freely  yielded,  forced ; 
Unfailing  brood  of  despotism  long. 

Great  Britain  vanquished,  every  form  of  right 
That  she  has  stood  for  presses  to  the  fore ; 

Britain  is  Freedom's  Champion  once  more; 
Her  best  men  forging  forward  to  the  light. 

Ever  is  cry  of  vengeance  deadly  wrong; 

Raging  and  hardened  heart  is  deaf  to  voice 
Of  conscience;  only  mourning  hearts  rejoice; 

Only  to  listeners  comes  the  heavenly  song. 
Repeat  the  brightest  record  of  her  past,  repeat ; 

Give  her,  O  Lord,  the  victory  of  defeat. 

UNIVERSALISM. 

LET  every  bird  come  in,  from  crow  to  hummer ; 
It  takes  them  all  to  make  a  single  summer. 


QO  Primrose  Diplomacy. 


TEN  THOUSAND  GONE. 

A  FULL  ten  thousand  gone, 

Lost,  missing,  wounded,  dead; 

Tho'  Autumn  leaves  scarce  flown, 
Tho'  scant  two  moons  have  fled. 

A  full  ten  thousand  gone; 

There'll  be  ten  thousands  more. 
Why  could  they  not  have  knawn  ? 

Why  not  have  seen  before? 

Yes,  tens  of  thousands  gone, 

What  of  it  ?     They  must  die.. 

Yet  where  is  any  one 

Can  give  good  reason  why? 

Yes,  tens  of  thousands  gone, 
Best,  bravest,  truest  true; 

None  of  them  brought  it  on ; 
Who  is  the  guilty,  who? 

0 

There  stands  the  guilty,  there! 

There  stands  the  guilty  one! 
Giving  the  loss  no  care ; 

Giving  no  reason,  none. 


To  the  War  Editor.  91 

God !     What  a  score  to  pay ! 

God!     What  a  claim  to  meet! 
There  on  the  judgment  day, 

There  at  the  judgment  seat! 

Yes,  tens  of  thousands  gone, 
Mute  at  the  muster-roll. 

Answer,  thou  guilty  one ! 

Answer,  thou  blood-stained  soul! 

ASPIRATION. 

SEEK  notoriety 
Unto  satiety; 
Fame  in  a  paragraph ; 
Name  'neath  a  photograph ; 
That  is  the  highest  of  purposes  now. 

Saving  the  aim  for  ambition  and  money, 
Worship  of  notice  is  loftiest  vow. 

TO  THE  WAR  EDITOR. 

THE  maddened  roar  of  a  beaten  bull 
Snorting  and  grinding  vengeance 
Is  the  sweet  and  chastened  spirit 
Of  a  noble  devotion ! 

A  war  begun  in  fraud, 
Based  upon  greed, 


92  Primrose  Diplomacy. 

Must  now  be  pressed  to  a  finish 
With  no  higher  motive  than  pride,  prestige, 
revenge ! 

Repentance  was  once  the  cure 

For  degradation  following  sin ; 

But  now  the  only  cure  is  blood, 

More  blood,  and  rage,  more  rage,  and  wrong. 

Why  don't  you  tell  her  she  is  wrong? 
Why  don't  you  call  on  her  to  repent? 

Alas !     The  voice  of  the  Prophet  is  still ! 
The  prophet  has  no  cry 
But  only  a  weather  eye : 
Be  in  with  the  winner; 
The  weak  is  a  sinner. 

And  that  is  what  expansion 

Does  for  the  Christian  ministry ! 

And  that  the  effect  a  taste  of  blood 

Has  had  upon  the  bearer  of  the  mantle 

Of  America's  greatest  Preacher  of  Freedom! 

* 

THE  INDEPENDENT  PRESS. 

IF  you  print  them  in  your  paper  any  more, 

I  will  stop  my  own  subscription, 

And  I'll  stop  John  Smith's  subscription; 


Expansion.  93 

I  will  'Stop  my  advertisement, 

And  I'll  stop  his  advertisement — 

If  you  wish  to  run  your  paper  any  more, — 

If  'tis  but  another  day— 

You  must  throw  them  right  away.. 


EXPANSION. 

WE  know  no  stimulant  like  soulful  slang 
Which  truly  forceful  poets  intersperse 
With  sly  obscene  suggestion  and  with  curse, 
Or  boastful  braggart's  long-drawn  bow-string 

twang. 

Awake  each  appetite  and  passion  base — 
Envy,  the  thirst  for  blood,  pride,  avarice,  hate, 
The  lust  of  power,  revenge  insatiate ; 
Rouse  every  hellish  instinct  of  the  race. 
Behold,  what  riot  leaps  to  the  appeal ! 
The  multitude  turn'd  mob,  the  mob,  a  brute, 
While  justice,  righteousness  and  truth  stand 

mute — 

All  noble  senses  now  too  dead  to  feel. 
Turn   men   to   fiends,    dance   round   the   red 

abysm : 
Proclaim  blood  carnival  of  patriotism ! 


94     '         Primrose  Diplomacy. 


REVERSION. 

GIVE  silence  now  unto  the  poet's  song. 
Ideals  are  vapors  that  we  must  beware — 
But  stuff  to  stifle  men  who  do  and  dare. 
Peace,  poesy  and  prophecy  have  led  too  long. 
The  cause  of  Christ  is  but  an  empty  name; 
There  is  no  Christ,  there  is  no  Christian  cause. 
Priest,  preacher,  pastor,  propagator,  pause! 
Earth  grows  too  slow,  republican  and  tame. 
King  Kipling  comes  :  red  revolution  rife ! 
Makes  letters  mercenary,  vulgar,  low ; 
Makes  power  conscienceless  ;  turns  friend   to 

foe; 
Makes    mankind    meet    for    brutishness    and 

strife. 

Averts  our  faces  from  the  whitening  East ; 
Abases  us  before  the  Ancient  Beast. 


THE  MORTAR-BOX. 

AT  it  again ! 

Spoiling  the  sonnet  form! 

Filling  with  hate  what  only  love  should  feel; 

Crowding  rude,  ugly,  uncut  boulder  shapes 

With  an  evil  eye 

Into  the  delicate  film  of  an  iris  hue. 


The  Mortar  Box.  95 

What  is  form? 

Tis  but  a  box  to  set  mortar  in. 

As  soon  as  the  mortar  is  set,  away  with  the 

box! 

Lay  on  the  mortar  a  coat  of  pure  plaster  then 
And  trace  in  it  beautiful  shapes. 
Pile  on  the  pedestal  marble  and  jasper  and 

onyx  and  opal  stone, 
And  carve   more    shapes,    new    shapes,  more 

beautiful, 
Breathing  them  out    at    the    top  into  angel 

forms — 
Air,  mere  air,  yet  realer  than  all  the  realm. 

Rob  me  not  of  my  angels  to  save  your  mortar- 
box. 

If  your  stair  can  help  me  on  my  way, 
With  its  rounded  banister  and  arabesque  bal 
cony, 

Oh,  let  me  tread  it  now. 
As  I  am  finding  my  life  and  my  step  grows 

firm, 

It  is  lighter,  lighter,  too,  is  my  step. 
I  am  throwing  off  mortal  things — 
My  shoes  are  gone  and  my  stick  is  gone — 
How  could  I  mar  your  stair  if  I  would  ? 

Lend  me  your  arabesque  stair. 
'Trs  only  a  mortar-box. 


96  Primrose  Diplomacy. 

Tho'  you  see  them  not, 

Tho'  you  hear  them  not, 

That  mortar-box  is  my  balcony  pf  angels. 

THE  LITERARY  OUTLOOK  ON 
JANUARY  6,  1900. 

I'M  William  Lyman  Abbott  Shakespeare  Kip 
ling, 

You'd  scarcely  know  me  in  my  present  rig. 
A  decade  since,  I  was  the  merest  stripling; 

I  question  my  own  sameness,  I'm  so  big. 

O  stranger,  softly  tread  about  this  wonder! 

O  pray,  what  may  this  queer  creation  be? 
O  is  it  fact,  or  some  expansion  blunder? 

O  am  I  Lyman  Abbott,  Bill  or  me? 

It  may  be  'hinted  that  it  may  be  neither — 
This  thing  with  head  of  Shakespeare,  tail 
of  me — 

And  it  may  not  be  Lyman  Abbott  either : 
It  may  be  Mabie,  may  it  not?     May  be? 

O  renegade  religion,  sinking  fast, — 

Misguided  son  of  freedom-loving  sire, — 

In  vain  you  harness  genius  of  the  past 

To  drag  your  quicksand  doctrine  from  the 
mire. 


The  Southern  Cross.  97 

Each  downward  step  another  such  supplies, 
In  quick  succession  slide  your  parts  from 

view ; 
The.  genius   struggles,  'snaps   the  chain,   and 

flies : 

He  leaves  the  quicksand  and  the  depths  to 
you. 

THE  SOUTHERN  CROSS. 

EARTH  narrows  as  we  near  the  Southern  Pole; 
We  turn  to  right,  to  left,  less  land,  less  land, 
As  closer  comes  the  sea  on  either  hand, 
And  then  in    front — the    sea    surrounds  the 

whole. 

'Tis  night;  look  up  and  see  the  splendid  sky; 
You  stand  upon  this   rock-girt,   storm-bound 

cape; 

Above,  incomparable  systems  shape; 
Earth  shrunken,    gone — the    stars    supremely 

nigh. 

O  North,  with  all  your  breadth,  so  worldly- 
wise, 

So  civilized,  progressive,  up  to  date, 
Beware  lest,  wisdom-proud,  you  tinder-rate 
Matchless,  majestic,  millioned  Southern  skies. 
Filled  with  the  ferment  of  the  earthly  leaven : 
Unrobed,  unspirited,  unsouled  for  Heaven. 


98  Primrose  Diplomacy. 


TO- WIT. 

CHIVALRIC  sifter,  whose  unequal  till 
Pays  one  to  Millicent  and  two  to  Sill? 
When  as  her  following  by  merit  met, 
Would  bracket  her  withm  his  scilicet 


PHOEBE. 

FIRST  mirrored  in  Arequipa'?  g!ass, 

Faint  point  upon  a  photographic  plate, 

We  know  thy  distance,  orbit,  motion,  rate, 

Tho'  never  mortal  eye  hath  seen  th<ee  pass. 

Altho'  thyself  but  Saturn's  satellite, 

Thou  yield' st  to  Jupiter  and  to  the  Sun, 

Ready  allegiance  as  thy  course  is  run  : 

We  worship  thy  new  knowledge  of  thHr  might. 

Unseen,  obscure  and  undiscovered  soul, 

Scarce  located  upon  the  stellar  chart, 

Unrecognized  as  playing  any  part, 

Yet  may  thy  influence  penetrate  the  whole ". 

The  Master's  motions  in  thy  COUPSC 

And  lo,  the  Universe  is  at  thy  feet. 


Cronje,  99 


CRONJE. 

WHEN  that  conspiracy  most  despicable 
Rear'd  its  vile  head  to  strike  thy  country  down, 
Quick  to  the  rescue  rush'-d  that  sturdy  soul, 
Throttled  the  Beast,  down  iiung  him  hard, 
Wounded  and  raging,  on  the  bloody  ground — 
The  writhing  spectacle  of  the  world's  contempt. 


Wounded  and  raging,  writhing,  but  not  dead — 
'Tis  pity  that  thy  mercy  spared  him  then — 
From  that  same  shameful  day  until  this  hour, 
His  pride  stung  deep,  hate,  bitter,  born  of  guilt, 
Fresh-fuel'd  up,  low  disappointed  lust 
O'erleaps  the  coward  current  of  his  veins; 
The  old,  but  new  stirr'd  combined  flames  of 

hell 
Concentre  white-hot  fevers  of  revenge. 


Leagued  with  curs' d  hell-hounds  of  the  pit  let 
loose, 

Mail-clad  malignity  triumphant  leers; 
Marries  brute  force  to  avarice  and  fraud; 
Robs  starving  millions  to  pay  murder's  bills; 
Flies  even  challenge,  sneaks  from  solemn  bond, 
Bullies  and  boasts  when  double  ten  to  one. 


ioo  Primrose  Diplomacy. 

Simple  and  silent  peasant,  have  no  care; 
Ill-chance  of  warfare  leaves  no  stain  on  thee. 
Gloats  braggart  malice  over  thy  defeat; 
Yet  stand' st  thou    deathless    in    the  halls  of 
Fame. 

Wait,  only  wait !  Patience,  a  little  while ! 
Soon,  soon,  this  federated  tyranny 
Has  eaten  its  own  sordid  vitals  out — 
The  bloated  carcass  shrinks;  the  puffed  flesh 
Wrinkles,  splits;  the  limbs  drop  off- 
Tumbles  the  rotten  frame  to  quick  decay. 

Fear  not,  devoted  little  sister  land ! 

'Tis  not  in  vain  thy  tears  and  blood  are  shed, 

Not  wasted  is  this  cruel  agony. 

The  mother-home  of  that  heroic  soul 

No  power  can  hold  in  tyrant  shackles  long. 

Triumphant  thou  must  be,  resplendent  shine 

For  ages  after  the  despotic  hand 

Now  clutching  at  thy  throat  to  stifle  thee 

Has  fallen  nerveless,  withered  into  dust. 

Fade,  foes  of  Freedom,  foul  assassins,  fade! 
Count  not  your  nearness  to  that  lustrous  light 
Can     from     oblivion     save     your     shameful 

names, — 

Blotted  forever  out,  or,  known  at  all, 
Remembered  only  to  be  spat  upon. 


The  Poet  Visits  the  Cape.         101 

Man  most  majestic!  Patriot  the  kindliest! 
Favorite  of  Courage!  Freedom's  darling  son! 
Rude,  yet  how  noble !  Humble,  yet  how  high ! 
Weeps  now  the  world  that  all  her  treasure- 
house 
Contains  no  honor  worthy  to  bestow  on  thee! 

THE  GREATEST  COMMERCIAL 
ASSET. 

PAINT  on  her  banner  the  three  golden  balls, 
Sign  of  the  hook-nosed  statesman  financier. 
Stocks  are  more  cheerful,  margins  looking  up ; 
Cinches  and  corners  take  new  heart  again. 
The  manager  is  on  his  way  towards  home; 
The  bucket-shop  re-opens  with  a  boom. 

THE  POET  VISITS  THE  CAPE. 

Is  it  safe  at  the  Cape,  now,  Roberts? 

Is  it  safe  at  the  Cape? 
The  lie  I  started  is  speeding  on, — 

It  is  speeding  on, 
But  it  goes  too  slow  for  me; 

I  must  come,  I  must  come, 
I  must  come  and  push  it  some; 

In  idleness  I  chafe; 
Is  it  safe,  Lord  Roberts,  safe? 

Is  it  safe  at  the  Cape? 


102  Primrose  Diplomacy. 

How  many  have  you  killed,  Lord  Roberts, 
killed? 

How  many  thousand  shallow  graves  are 
filled? 

How  many  rot  in  the  trench  on  the  mountain 
side? 

How  many  corpses  swing  in  the  river-tide? 

How  many  ghastly  wounded  groan  and  die 

In  the  desolate  fields  where  the  shattered 
homesteads  lie? 


Splendid!  Splendid! 
Imperial!  Imperial! 
My !  What  stuff  to  make  poems  of ! 

How  many  pounds  per  line? 
My !  What  stuff  to  make  stories  of ! 
Pounds  per  page  are  mine ! 
Material!  Material! 


Chances!  Come!  Chances! 
Come,  Englishmen,  come! 
Englishmen  from  Canada! 
Englishmen  from  Australia 
Englishmen  from  here  and  there! 
Englishmen  from  everywhere! 

Come!  Hearken!  Come! 


The  Sign  of  the  Elephant.         103 

Gold  mines !  Gold  mines ! 
Diamonds !  Diamonds ! 
Thousands  of  acres  of  arable  land ! 
Thousands  of  acres  of  grazing  land ! 
Rich  and  rare, 
Vacant,  bare 
Owners  dead, 
Shot,  buried,  fled. 
Listen  to  ME ! 
I  -am  MIGHT ! 
I  am  the  BLIGHT! 
I  am  the  herald  of  the  NIGHT ! 
I'm  the  newest  mouth  of  the  latest  pit 
And  the  lurid  glare  in  the  midst  of  it. 
I  AM  HELL! 


THE  SIGN  OF  THE  ELEPHANT. 

HAVING     labored     many     summers     without 

ceasing, 

In  the  cultivation  of  my  own  demand, 
Till  the  latter  is  established  and  increasing, 
'Tis  no  longer    goods    I'm    selling — but  the 

brand. 


Put  my  name  on;  that's  enough;  the  kind's 
no  matter, 


IO4  Primrose  Diplomacy. 

I'm  so  busy  reaping  now  I  cannot  sow. 

Tho'  the  character  grows  slim,  the  purse  is 

fatter. 
If  it  bear  the  charmed  impression,  it  will  go. 

And   what   are   names   for   in   this   world   of 

spending, 

From  titled  heads'  to  writers'  of  a  song, — 
If  not  available  for  sale  or  lending, 
To  help  ourselves  and  families  along? 

The  noble  lends  his  title  to  the  boomer 
And  gets  his  big  percentage  of  the  swag ; 
If  poet  cultivates  the  public  humor 
He  should  not  have  to  bear  an  empty  bag. 

He  shall  not,  no,  he  shall  not, — I  assure  it. 
See  the  shekels  pouring  headlong  to  his  till. 
Can  he  keep  the  wound  a-gaping,  and  not  cure 

it, 
Ere  the  carnival  is  ended,  he's  'his  fill. 

THE  'ANDKERCHIEF. 

*• 

'E  CUSSED  at  Modder  River 
Where  Smutty  Chambers  dies, 
Ts  bloomin'  muddy  liver 
All   chronic   damn-your-eyes, — 
Gawd!     'Ow  'e  swore!  To  su'thard, 


The  Gong.  105 

Where  dust  and  horse-dung  sift, 
The  beggar's  soul  lies  smothered 
Beneath  the  Stinkersdrift. 

I  belong  to  the  race  that  was  born  to  reign, 

To  the  ruling  class  of  that  race. 

If  any  one  questions  my  right  again, 

I'll  spit  in  his  blasted  face. 

As  I  sample  my  beak  over  land  and  sea, 

From  the  line  unto  either  pole, 

If  any  one  ventures  to  meddle  with  me, 

I'll  blow  my  nose  on  his  soul. 

THE  GONG. 

BEHOLD     the     foul-mouthed,     fouler-minded 

trumpet 

Who  heralds  the  new  era  forth,  forsooth, 
When  manhood    takes    the    vile    commercial 

strumpet, 
And  flings  behind  him  virtue,  beauty,  truth. 

When  to  blind  lust  you've  yielded  up  your 

being, 

And  .sacrificed  all  honor  to  desire; 
When  character  and  self-respect  are  fleeing, 
That  is  the  kind  of  spirit  you  require. 


106  Primrose  Diplomacy. 


THE  WEAVER. 

FLASHED  by  the  wire  from  England  unto 
York; 

Flashed  by  the  steamer  back  to  Africa; 

Flashed  by  the  wire  now  to  London  town; 

Now  here,  now  there,  here,  there,  now  every 
where,  I  fly — I  weave. 

Like  the  led  thread  the  fascinated  eye 
Follows  the  flashing  of  my  shining  mark : 
I  weave,  I  weave,  with  purpose  for  myself; 
I  weave,  I  weave,  for  profit  to  myself; 
I  weave,  I  weave,  the  pattern  of  myself ; 
All,  all,  and  all,  and  everywhere  is  self — My 
self. 

What  if  the  warp  and  woof  be  stained  with 

blood? 
What  if  the  wind  play  weepings  through  the 

thread? 

No  matter :  I  am  weaving  for  myself, — 
I  cannot  stay  for  blood  or  cry  of  pain' 

Snatch  from  the  loom  the  hideous  winding- 
sheet  ! 
Roll  up  the  weaver  in  his  patterned  shroud ! 


The  Butcher-Bird.  107 

Shotted     and  blood-stained,   sink   the  burden 

deep, 
Deep  'neath  the  ample  secret-saving  sea. 

THE  BUTCHER-BIRD. 

O  BUTCHER-BIRD  of  the  trenchant  word, 

O  bird  of  the  bloody  song, 
Must  every  word  of  the  butcher-bird 

Be  nasty,  to  be  strong  ? 

O  prophet  and  priest  of  the  human  beast, 
O  priest  of  the  prevalent  prayer, 

Must  the  mystic  sign  of  the  right  divine 
Of  mighty  worth  to  rule  the  earth 

Be  slang  and  smut  and  swear? 

As  we  follow  the  bent  of  your  argument 

To  the  point  of  your  policy, 
In  your  tale  we  can  trace  the  opposite  case 

Till  we  sympathize  with  the  sinner  that 

cries 
"  Drive  the  Inglestink  into  the  sea!  " 

And  this  is  our  word  to  the  butcher-bird, 
Our  word  to  the  songs  he  sang: 

We  hope  we  have  heard  your  ultimate  word 
Of  boast  and  brag  and  bully-rag 

And  smut  and  swear  and  slang. 


io8  Primrose  Diplomacy. 

And  this  is  our  word  to  the  butcher-bird, 
Our  word  to  the  songs  he  might  sing : 

Get  down  off  your  plank  on  the  garbage-tank 
And  drink  at  some  cleaner  spring. 


BLOEMFONTEIN. 

TEN  huddled  dying  in  a  space  for  one; 
One  watcher  where  the  need  requires  ten — 
And  he  a  rough,  untaught  incompetent. 
At  night  hot  fever  touches  icy  ground 
Without  a  comfort  or  a  guard  between, 
And  freezing  air  enswathes  the  tossing  limbs. 
While  in  the  stinking  day  the  haggard  face 
And  shrunken,  helpless  hands  are  garmented 
In  loathsome,  clinging,  crawling  insect  shroud. 
And  soon  they  hustle  out  the  lifeless  form 
To  hide  in  the  already  glutted  ground — 
And  wedge  two  waiting  wretches  in  his  place 
To  slide  in  turn  adown  the  sure  incline. 
And  this  the  guerdon  that  the  faithful  wrin 
By  serving  the  Great  Mistress  when  she  calls : 
Forgotten  and  forsaken — both  of  these — 

O  f 

For  the  Great  Mistress  in  her  bargaining 
Has  sold  her  soul  unto  a  soulless  Lord, 
And  is  too  busy  doing  his  behests 
To  hear  the  call  of  conscience  any  more. 


Dissolution.  109 


DISSOLUTION. 

Now  groom' d  and  oily  insolence  proclaims 
Her  high  exclusive  jurisdiction  here; 
Her  curling  lip,  late  quivering  with  fear 
For  manhood  deep  humiliation  names. 
Her  carpet  soldier,  bare  escaped  the  toils, 
Be-bulletins  his  boasts  of  petty  deeds; 
Hawk-visaged  statecraft  banded  rapine  leads 
To  rend  and  fatten  on  the  reeking  spoils. 
Commercial  poets  clang  their  auction-bell 
To  advertise  the  funeral  of  verse, 
While  asses  garlanded  conduct  the  hearse, 
And  idiotic  ululations  swell. 
The  howling  mobs  run  riot  in  her  streets 
To  celebrate  the  turning  of  the  tide,— 
They'll  howl  tomorrow  on  the  other  side 
When  history  her  prophecy  completes. 
The  price  of  blood  clinks  in  her  closing  purse, 
To  mock  her  starving  subjects'  dying  curse; 
Unburied  thousands  piled  aid  rotting  there 
Pollute  the  dead  and  pestilential  air: 
Offended  Nature  laboring  to  portray 
The  moral  stench  of  empire  in  decay. 


no  Primrose  Diplomacy. 


JOUBERT. 

No  tawdry  decorations  on  his  breast; 
No  unearned  honors  stamp'd  by  privilege; 
But  simple  Piet,  the  gentleman,  the  Lion, 
Piet  the  man. 

Alas !  Invincible  to  tyranny, 
The  sorrows  of  his  country  bore  him  down; 
The  dear  dust  of  the  veldt  envelopes  him, 
Folds "  her  fond  arms  about  him,   claims  her 
own. 

Another  score  against  the  Slave  of  Hell ! 
And  Joubert's  soul  flames   forth  to  join   the 
•heralds  of  swift  judgment. 

ORANGE  RIVER  COLONY. 

STRIKE  out  the  "  Free/' 

And  henceforth  let  it  be 
Upon  the  chart  another  blot  of  red. 

Grind  the  heel  deep, 
And  henceforth  let  it  keep 
Its  iron  weight  upon  the  serpent's  head. 

Drive  the  blade  home, 

And  let  the  life-blood  come — 


Free  England.  in 

What  rights  have  common  men  against  the 

Queen  ? 

Pour  salt  and  gall, 
And  twist  the  blade  withal, 
Till  smiles  bedeck  the  sated  royal  mien. 

God! — if  there  be  a  God? 

By  all  that  makes  thee  God — 
Rouse  universal  manhood  from  the  dead ! 

God  of  the  brave  and  free 

Return  this  infamy 
A  thousand  times  upon  the  tyrant's  head. 

FREE  ENGLAND. 

I  STOOD  upon  a  platform  in  a  good  old  English 

town, 

And  I  stated  plain  my  sentiments  right  there: 
I  said  it  was  an  outrage  that  the  Dutch  were 

crowded  down 
By  the  multi-politician-millionaire. 

My  hearers  were  responsive  and  intelligent  and 
quick — 

The  flower  of  the  civilized  and  free — 

And  the  liberal  air  of  England  was  soon  sat 
urated  thick 

With  the  gifts  they  freely  showered  upon  me. 


H2  Primrose  Diplomacy. 

A  reckless  prodigality  quite  hitherto  unseen — 
Free  bricks,   free  boots,    free    cabbages  and 

such — 
If  any  one  imagines  that  free  Englishmen  are 

mean, 
He  doesn't  understand  the  rascals  much. 

They  'help'd  me  from  that  platform — free  ride 

upon  free  rail — 

Free  tar,  free  brush,  free  feathering,  and  then 
Free  ambulance,  free  hospital,  free  officers,  free 

jail, 
Free  soldiers  to  protect  me  from  free  men. 

Free  surgery,  free  liniments,  free  plaster   and 

free  rest — 

Then  I  stole  me  to  Southampton  by  the  sea, 
Where  I  hail'd  the  earliest  steamer  that  was 

leaving  for  the  West, 
Free  America  is  free  enough  for  me. 

THE  BRITISH  SLAVE. 

COURAGE?     The  courage  of  the  driven  herd 
Goaded  to  mad  and  congregated  rush 
They  know  not  why  nor  where.     For  coward 
ice 
Makes  certain  what  obedience  does  but  risk, 


The  British  Slave.  113 

The  rather  facing  chance  on  heated  fields 
Than  the  sure  level  files  of  cold  decree. 

Honor?     When  men  by  questionable  means 

Aim  to  attain  dishonorable  ends, 

Does  the  mere  tool  employed  by  such  as  these 

Acquire  honor  by  this  talisman: 

That  being  but  a  tool  he  lacks  the  guilt 

While  lacking  likewise  wit  to  share  the  gain? 

We  do  destroy  more  honor  than  we  save. 

The  flag?     That  final  refuge  of  the  wretch 
Who,  seeking  to  divert  the  public  gaze 
From  his  own  chamber  business,  nimbly  flings 
Her  blinding  folds  upon  the  horns  of  judg 
ment. 

Country?     Nay,  commerce.     Principle?  Nay, 

gain. 

Courage,  the  flag  and  honor?     Nay,  despair 
And    chance,       adventure,       enterprise,     and 

change, 

And  other  motives  mean  and  manifold 
Mingle  to  torture  the  unsteady  helm 
That  steers  our  trail  of  blood  across  the  chart. 

Mere  marionettes,  automata,  machines 
With    wheels    and    screws,    and    levers    to  be 
pulled ; 
8 


U4  Primrose  Diplomacy. 

Distant  and  irresponsible  caprice 

Bids  us  but  dance  the  figures  it  designs — 

Strabismic  strategies  conducted  by 

Some  squinting  monocle  of  statesmanship. 

We  are  the  crisping  playthings  of  the  flame, 
Used  and  discarded,  dropped  into  the  pit, 
Shovelled  and    tossed    and    scattered  on  the 

ground 

A  sort  of  cinder  ^track  of  refuse  stuff 
For  panting  privilege  to  race  upon. 
And  when  at  last  they  blunder  to  the  goal 
Flames  to  the  heaven  with  mighty  blazoning 
The  record   they  have  made,   how  well   they 

look 
After,  forsooth,  the  sufferings  borne  by  us. 

Give  them  new    lands    from    better    owners 

filched, 
Give  them  new  names  to  make  worse  records 

on, 

Give  them  new  pins  to  stick  upon  their  coats. 
For  us  tig'ht  jackets  and  the  monkey  cap, 
For  us  the  stinking  pipe  and  bunch  of  weed, 
Liquors  galore,  and  dirty  thumb-stained  pack 
With  photographs  of  female  nudity — 
For  us  the  proper  furnishings  are  these, — 
And  for  our  shifting,  melancholy  roof. 


"A  Purple  Tail-Patch.  115 

Why  should  we  give  a  thought  to  any  thing  ? 
Why  should  we  aim  for  character  or  name? 
Let  us  drink  deep  and  drink  again  till  morn, 
Carousing  with  the  common  midnight  wench, 
Till  rounded  up  towards  sunrise  by  the  guard. 

What  matter  ?     Our  philosophy  is  good ; 
For  e'er  the  sun  upon  the  morrow  sets, 
The  body-snatchers  search  some  ragged  hill, 
Scratch  out  a  shallow  ditch  to  dump  us  in, 
Begrudge  us  even  covering  enough, 
So  that  the  midnight  showers  having  passed 
And  s'hed  their    tears,    the    stooping  vulture 

comes 

Responding  aptly  to  the  mute  appeal, 
Seizes  and  shakes  the  lifted,  outstretched  hands 
In  warm  and  carrion  welcome. 


"  A  PURPLE  TAIL-PATCH." 

Victory  ? 

O  England !     'Tis  not  victory,  but  death, 
Death  and  decay ;  but  were  it  victory, 
And  victory  unquestioned,  'twere  too  dear 
At  such  a  price  of  honor  sacrificed, 
Ancient  ideals  destroyed  and  manhood  gone. 
Kneel !  kneel !     In  deep  humiliation  kneel ! 
In  penitence  and  shame  forgiveness  seek; 


n6  Primrose  Diplomacy. 

Wash  you  and  purify  and  quickly  turn 
From  sordidness  and  brute  accomplishment 
Back  to  that  better  name  by  selfish  hands 
Reft  of  her  beauty  and  nobility. 
Lift,   then,   again   the  upward   heart   towards 

heaven. 
So  may  the  flag  once  more,  cleansed  from  her 

stains, 

Bear  to  the  glad  and  universal  skies 
Reflected  love  on  all  her  sun-illumined  waves. 


UNDERTONES. 

MINE  be  the  theme  and    let    me  sweep  the 

strings, 

And  I*will  make  such  music  to  thy  soul, 
As  lendeth  careful  sorrow  lightest  wings, 

And  mendeth  purpose  broken-hearted  whole. 

t.'. 

Rest  in  the  shadowy  bower  leaf-entwined, 
Face  the  cool  fragrance  of  the  ocean  breeze, 
Soothed  by  the  murmur  of  the  brook  combined 
With  the  soft  whisper  of  the  summer  trees. 

*• 

Sing  the  sweet  language  of  the  violet 
By  blood-red  passion  to  the  oak-tree  told; 
The  tripping  daisy  with  her  minuet; 
The  acclamation  of  the  marigold. 


Undertones.  117 

Flame,  torch  of  meadow,  through  the  living 

green ; 
Flash  on  the  noonday    wave,    shaft     of    the 

King; 

Wheel  to  the  storm,  O  Monarch  of  the  scene; 
Lord  of  the  midnight,  full  thy  beacon  swing. 

Sing  the  still  majesty  of  mountain-side 
Uplifted  o'er  the  bending  of  the  shore 
Where  kneels  the  oft-confessing  tide 
Mid  organ  peal  of  breakers'  solemn  roar. 

Kneel!  kneel!  my  soul,   blend  in  the  sacred 

rite; 

Roll  the  great  storm's  triumphal  cars; 
Swung  in  the  hush'd  attention  of  the  night; 
Bathed  in  the  ancient  message  of  the  stars. 

Splendor  of  splendors,  blaze  of  jewels  rare, 
Steady  effulgence  of  the  eternal  brow, 
Turn  but  the  vision  of  thy  spirit  there, 
Prostrate  thy  soul  in  adoration  now. 

Rise  then,  my  soul',  thy  new  horizons  clear, 
[Radiance  ineffable,   unknown,  undream' d — 
Innumerable  companies  attend  thee  here, 
Thy  race,  and  with  thy  race,  thy  self,  redeemed. 


n8  Primrose  Diplomacy. 

Thy  race  and  all  thy  race,  for  missing  one, 
The  travail  of  the  ages  were  in  vain, 
The  eon-searching  sacrifice  undone, 
The  frowning  heights  confronting  us  again. 


All  will  be  there,  the  lofty  and  the  low, 

For  the  great  leveller  shall  dip  and  fill, 

And  pour  them  on  that  sphere  where  ethers 

flow 
And  in  impartial  showers  of  love  distil. 


All !  All !     Not  one,  not  one  is  lost,  not  one, — 
Were  one,  my  sorrow  and  my  joy  were  vain — 
Soul  of  my  soul,  son  of  my  darling  son, 
Home  to  thy  home,  heart  of  my  heart,  again. 


Open  my  window  towards  Jerusalem, — 
Flood-gate  of  elemental  light — 
Voice  of  the  mating  dove,  sweet  Bethlehem, — 
Breathing  her  incense  on  the  night. 


Mute  be  the  instrument,  O  stroke  inadequate, 
Cease  from  thy  labored  lisping,  mortal  tongue, 
Loveliest  of  golden  tales  reiterate, 
Eloquent  silence  of  the  song  unsung. 


It  Is  Well.  119 


IT  IS  WELL. 

DEAD  in  the  trenches,  a  woman, 
Killed  by  an  English  shell; 
Spared  they  not  even  a  woman? 
Dead !     She  is  dead.     It  is  well. 

Children  are  waiting  her.     How  is  it  well  ? 
Well  that  she  never  knew — 
Empire  speeding  that  pitiless  shell, 
Reaches  her  little  ones  too. 

Flames  are  consuming  the  homestead, 
Kindled  by  English  decree, 
Vainly  the  weeping  ones  pleaded — 
Grandmother,  little  ones,  flee. 

Dead  in  the  trenches,  the  mother ; 
Dead  on  the  hillside,  the  men; 
Children  torn  one  from  another — 
Ashes  and  nakedness  then. 

Parentless,  homeless  and  friendless, 
Blows  by  Britannia  dealt, 
Brutal  and  blundering,  endless, 
Bias/ting  the  face  of  the  veldt. 


120  Primrose  Diplomacy. 

Well  ?     Was  it  well  that  the  empire 
Willed,  and  this  wilderness  came? 
Well,  when  she  wakes  to  the  vampire 
Outraging  thus  in  her  name. 

Bargaining,  brokerage  statescraft, 
Blood-guilty,  black,  devil-bought, 
Deep  drink  the  red  reeking  hate-draught, 
Hail  the  high  hell  you  have  wrought. 

Care  not  ?     I  know  that  you  care  not ; 
Heaven  forbid  you  should  care 
Lest  through  repentance  you  fare  not 
Foul  as  you're  fitted  to  fare. 

Flint  is  your  face  to  repentance, 
Granite  your  soul  to  the  same, 
Steady  comes  gathering  vengeance, 
Blots  out  and  grinds  out  your  name. 

OVERTONES. 

SAY  what  you  please  of  the  darkness,  I  say  it 

is  peopled, 
Peopled  with  voices  and  spirits  who  speak 

unto  me, 
Me   unto   cities   lead,    cities    all    golden    and 

steepled, 

Steepled  with  spires  of  the  morning.    The 
sound  of  the  sea — 


Overtones.  121 

The  sound  of  the  sea  I  can  hear,  and  I  say  it 

is  thrilling, 
Thrilling  with  voices  and  spirits  who  call 

upon  me, 
Me  upon  waves  of  delight    it    is    rolling  and 

filling, 

Filling  the  midnight  with  motion.     The 
starlight  I  see, — 


The  starlight  I  see  and  I  say  that  the  starlight 

is  calling, 
Calling  with  voices  and  spirits  that  flow 

•above  me, 
Me  above  everything  lifting,  and  flowing  and 

falling, 

Falling  and  flowing,  and  filling  and  fash 
ioning  me — 


Filling  and  fashioning,  midnight  and  starlight 

and  ocean, 
Ocean  of   voices   and    spirits    who  surge 

around  me, 
Me  around  cycles    lead,    cycles  of    music  and 

motion 

Motion  of  midnight  and -light- waves  and 
waves  of  the  sea. 


122  Primrose  Diplomacy. 


THE  PITY  OF  THE  PUSHIFUL. 

CAT. 

GUINEA,    the    cat,  was    weak;    Tricksy    was 

strong — 

Tricksy  the  canine  of  uncanny  mien, 
And  mighty  full  of  appetite  and  spleen — 
Majestic  back-yard  boss  unquestion'd  long, 
His  kitchen  forage  fed  her  nuptial  throng, 
While  mussed  her    paw    shares    hitherto 

right ; 

Oh !  but  those  windy  cats  offend  the  night 
And  sing  no  end  insufferable  song. 
That  no  dog  yield  to  no  cat  nor  renown 
Nor  scraps,  lest  lofty  discontent 
Him  drown'd,  wakes  strenuous  Tricksy  bent 
On  business,  wearing  Virtue's  kinky  frown, 
So  mad,  gesticulating  up  and  down, 
Cat-'unting,  dawn  or  dark,  incontinent. 

DOG. 

Not  unto  us  is  nothing.     Idle  boast. 
That  no  cat  never  lives  who  preys  on  me  ? 
I  hear  her  vile  voice  jeering,  so  I'll  see 
That  Madam  purry  puss  from  sill  to  post. 
I'm  least  avenging  When  I've  eaten  most, 


To  Tommy  and  Budge.          123 

And  most  is  all,  and  nothing  more  nor  less; 
I'm  poor,  but  fatter  grow,  let  cats  confess, 
On  stronger  victuals  than  cold  tea  and  toast. 
We  can't  let  cat-gut  guttural  increase; 
Concatenated  kennels  send  decree 
That  racy  cat  comminglirtg  must  not  be. 
I'll  gobble  Guinea !  Liberty  and  Peace ! 
Shall  pimpled  pussy  seal  those  pounds  of  fat? 
Begone,  by  Jingo!     Sick  'er,  Tricksy!  Scat! 

THE  MORTAR-BOARD. 

SHE  limps  no  more,  the  Isle  of  Man,  upon  her 
broken  cane. 

But  gaily,  as  in  days  of  yore,  dances  and  skips 
again. 

No  pensioned  nightingaley  bird  nor  high- 
beaked  Polly  thrush 

With  fifty  weeping  pounds  a  year  to  make  his 
Country  blush. 

He's  no  ex'austin'  Alfred  nor  a  laureated  Lord, 

But  he's  just  a  simple  Manxman  with  a  com 
mon  mortar-board. 

TO  TOMMY  AND  BUDGE. 

0  CHILDREN  of  the  most  Chivalric  man 
Who  graced  the  years  of  this  hard  century, 

1  image  to  myself  what  you  should  be 


124  Primrose  Diplomacy. 

As  here  your  little  monuments  I  scan. 
How  universal,  polished,  perfect,  round, 
How  lovely,  gentle,  radiant,  faithful,  true, 
The  pure  ideals  he  shaped  for  all  of  you ! 
Alas !  His  hopes  lie  buried  in  the  ground ! 
Stay !  With  one  stroke  those  boys  have  made  a 

name, 

And  handed  down  their  history  to  fame! 
Sons  of  a  genius,  geniuses  they  are : 
They  saw  this  present  prospect  from  afar; 
Their  lucid  souls  with  prophecy  complete 
Could  see  a  circus  in  a  Bardic  Meet ! — 
They  saw,  they  shuddered,  as  the  vision  came, 
They  turn'd,  they  fled,  they  died — to  save  their 

shame. 


SAINT  GEORGE. 

KNIGHT-ERRANT  of  the  dilettante  pen, 
He  hovers  on  the  margin  of  the  fight 
And  plagues  the  captains  of  the  coming  light- 
Darts  in  and  out  and  in  and  out  again. 
A- jolt  upon  his  highest-stepping  style, 
Tight-laced  within  his  stiff  parentheses, 
He  marshals  his  uncouth  menageries, 
And  thinks  he  holds  the  enemy  awhile. 
Circling  the  light,  and  darting  in  and  out, 
He  borrows  from  the  greater  radiancy, 


Saint  Matthew.  125 

And  almost  glitters  in  such  company, 
Yet  grows,  while  essaying  to  fleer  and  flout, 
Inextricate  and  dazzled  as  he  does  : 
Impaled  on  Matthew  let  the  beauty  buzz. 

SAINT  MATTHEW. 

BLINDED  by  the  inexorable  glare 

Of  the  consuming  Present,  'tis  in  vain 

Immortal  aspiration  seeks  to  gain 

Her  perfect  destiny,  while  burning  there. 

However  bright  the  Present,  she  at  last 

Confesses  to  her  failure,  she  alone 

Can  never  save, — humanity  must  own 

The  steady  beacons  of  the  Solemn  Past. 

Bid  every  flame  upon  the  action  flow ; 

Ponder  the  near  and  distant  signal  fires ; 

Gather  the  light  from  all  the  golden  spires ; 

Present  and  Past  blend  in  the  coming  glow : 

Kneel,  then,  with  reverent  eyes  the  image  scan ; 

At  radiant  dawn  appears  perfected  man. 


Matthew !     No  matter  what  your  pedigree, 
Or  Saxon,  Norman,  Roman,  German,  Celt, — 
All  barriers  of  race  and  country  melt 
When  once  your  smiling  countenance  I  see. 
It  matters  not  or  whether  right  or  wrong 
Your  views  of  Homer,  Milton,  Shelley,  Keats, 


126  Primrose  Diplomacy. 

Or  foul  or  fair  your  criticism  treats, 

Or  how  eternal  your  own  noble  song. 

But  matters  much  with  what  a  master-blade 

You  slice  the  English  bladders  to  the  core 

And  let  the  wind  out  till  the  rascals  roar, 

And  leave  them  frothing,  fainting,  flattened, 

flay'd. 

I  swell  with  satisfaction  at  the  sight  ; 
You  please  me  till  I  tingle  with  delight. 


What  are  these  tears  that  well  into  mine  eyes, 
That  well,  and  well  again,  and  overflow, 
As  if  from  far-fed  fountain  of  the  skies? 
There  is  no  voice  or  vision  that  I  know, 
Yet  memories  unspeakable  arise. 
What  is  the  light  that  lifts  my  spirit  so, 
And  when  the  everlasting  "  No  "  denies^ 
Straightway  denies  the  everlasting  "No"? 
It  is  the  flash  of  that  same  master-blade 
Unsheathed  unquenchable  before  the  cloud 
Which  holds  the  prospect  in  unending  shade 
By  the  enigma  answerless  allowed. ' 
The  same  lithe-fashioned  weapon  keen  and  true 
That  stirred  my  laughter,  made  me  rage  and 

rail, 

Dissevers  the  impenetrable  veil 
And  lets  the  flood-light  of  the  heavens  through. 


Saint  Matthew.  127 

Laughter  and  tears,  rage  and  a  patient  peace, 
Such  are  the  varied  chords  he  plays  upon. 
Play  on,  O  Master-player,  never  cease 
Until  the  golden  harmony  be  won. 
Play  on,  play  on,  play  to  the  everglade, 
Play  on,  play  on,  play  to  the  fringing  pines, 
Pipe  to  the  shadows  of  the  farther  woods, 
Call  down  the  stairway  of  the  plunging  gorge, 
Sound  o'er  the  billows  of  the  sinking  hills, 
Rouse  the  death-level  of  the  yellow  plain- 
Answer  the  echo  of  the  wandering  bell. 
Play  on,  play  on,  yield  not,  now  chide,  now 

warn, 

With  magic  melody  go  pleading  forth, 
Intoxicate,  persuade,  advise,  compel, 
Weave  the  most  exquisite  of  winsome  lay 
And  pour  its  soft  enchantment  everywhere 
At  last,  at  last,  unto  the  uttermost 
The  quivering,  undulating  note  attains, 
And  penetrates  and  permeates  and  moves : 
They  stop,  they  wait,  they  listen,  they  look  up, 
They  waken  to  some  far  sweet  memory, 
They  turn,   they  catch  the  distant  mountain 

flame, 

They  follow  upward  to  the  living  green. 
Play  on,  play  on,  victorious  pipe,  play  on. 


128  Primrose  Diplomacy. 


NOT  A  COLLEY. 

RETURNED  some  who  with  Colley  were, 
While  Colley  low  was  laid; 

But  he,  unlike  a  Colley,  Sir, 

Came  back — -the  others  stayed. 

Success  in  war  is  not  the  knack 

Of  fighting  or  of  flying ; 
The  crowning  art  is  getting  back 

While  others  do  the  dying. 

Lay  down  their  rifles  and  their  swords, 
Vain,  vain !  these  idle  tears  ; 

Enough  that  being  now  the  Lord's, 
They  cannot  too  be  peers. 

The  pick  and  shovel  lay  beside 
Their  graves  anear  and  far; 

And,  then,  to  praise  the  turning  tide, 
We'll  sing  a  brief  crow  bar. 

THE  ISLE  OF  MAN. 

OH,  where  is  the  Isle  of  manly  men? 

'Twas  England  once,  I  ween. 
But  'tis  not  now,  nor5!!  be  again. 
The  Isle  of  Man  is  the  Isle  of  Men, 

And  Brown  is  the  Man  I  mean. 


Cecilian  Whispers.  129 


CECILIAN  WHISPERS. 

THEY  sat  in  the  Guildhall  all  alone, — 

The  Cecils  and  Uncle  Sam, — 
Uncle  Sam  and  the  Cecils  and  Joseph  Choate — 
A-carving  the  latest  imperial  shoat, — 
A-parcelling  brain  and  blood  and  bone, 

And  hide  and  hair  and  ham. 

Uncle  Sam  had  no  business  there  at  all, 
For  he  doesn't  belong  in  the  Mayor's  hall, 
And  his  mind  and  his  manners  are  rather  raw 
For  the  sons  and  nephews  and  sons-in-law, 
The  Marquis  here  and  a  Sir  or  so, 

And  Barons  and  Earls  and  Lords, — 
And  they  wouldn't  have  let  the  Uncle  go 
Except  in  the  tow  of  that  Joking  Joe 

Who  shines  at  their  festal  boards. 

At  the  right  of  the  Marquis  sits  Pushful  Joe 
(Kynoch  and  Hoskins  are  not  there), 
And  he  points  his  finger  here  and  there 
To  the  juicy  bits  on  the  bill  of  fare, 
As  he  whispers  the  Marquis  a  gentle  word 
About  the  worm  and  the  early  bird, 
With  a  nod  towards  Joseph  Junior's  chair, 
Who    sits    'twixt    the    Cecils    and    Cecil 
Rhodes— 

9 


130  Primrose  Diplomacy. 

Right  opposite  Uncle  and  Joking  Joe — 
And  the  knowing  ones  know  what  that  nod 
forebodes, 
or  it's  odds  his  nods  mean  so. 

Then  Joking  Joseph  whispered  low 

To  his  Uncle  Sam  to  do  so  and  so : 

"  Just  look  at  me,  Uncle,  and  do  as  I  do, 

And  you'll  seem  to  be  smart  as  I  don't  care 

who: 

And  if  you  go  wrong,"  spoke  Joseph  Choate, 
"  I'll  give  you  a  poke,  or  a  pull  on  your  coat." 

The  Marquis  was  mad — 
Uncle  Sam  did  rear; 
The  Marquis  was  sad — 
Uncle  dropped  a  tear ; 
The  Marquis  laughed — 
Uncle  Sam  did  roar; 
The  Marquis  quaffed — 
Uncle  Sam  quaffed  more. 

Marquis  at  last  let  the  compliments  go, 
And  a  knowing  nod  from  Pushful  Joe, 
Through  Joseph  Junior  to  Joking  Joe, 
Was  only  to  give  Uncle  Sam  to  learn 
That  now  it  was  time  he  should  take  his  turn; 
And  Joking  Joe,  with  a  delicate  poke, 


Cecilian  Whispers.  131 

Aroused  Uncle  Sam,  and  awake  he  woke, 
And  catching  the  cue  he  was  taught  by  Choate 

(He  was  coached  by  Ghoate), 
Sam  got  up  and  got  off  Joe's  little  joke — 
Hurrah!  Hurrah! 

Hah!  Hah!  Hah!  Hah! 
As  they  carved  the  shoat. 

And  the  wine  and  the  blood  got  mixed  as  they 

ran, 
Till  it  seemed  to  them  all  that  they  carved  a 

man. 
"  Hurrah !      Hurrah !      Hah !      Hah !  "  they 

roar, — 

Another  bumper  and  then  one  more. 
The  gold  plate  rattles,  the  rafters  ring, 
The  oaken  shelves  and  the  rafters  ring ; 
And  a  sweeping  bow 
And  a  low  kow-kow, 
Makes  Uncle  Sam, 
And  a  deep  salaam, — 
As  the  wine  Sicilian  whirls — 
The  deepest  salaam  that  you  ever  saw, 
To  the  sons  and  nephews  and  sons-in-law, 
To  the  Marquis  here  and  a  Sir  or  so, 

And  Barons  and  Lords  and  Earls — • 
And  the  red  blood  ran 
As  they  carved  a  man. 


132  Primrose  Diplomacy. 

The  blood  was  red, 
But  the  man  was  dead, — 
What  matter  how  red,  or  how  came  he  dead  ? 
The  knife  went  in,  above,  below, — 
A  piece  for  Junior,  and  three  for  Joe, — 
(Kynoch  and  Hoskins  were  not  there)  — 
For  the  elder,  done;  for  the  younger,  rare; 
They  call'd  for  a  saw,  and  they  saw'd  a  bone: 
A  gasp !    A  sigh !    And  a  smothered  groan ! 
Hah!  Hah! 

The  lights  fell  dim 
As  they  fell  on  him : 

And  pale  and  bleeding,  with  outstretch'd  hands, 
He  pleads  for  his  freedom,  his  life,  his  lands. 
'Twas    thrice    he    cried;    he   was    thrice 

denied ; 

He  was  drown' d  in  the  roar  of  the  rising  tide 
Like  the  shouting  Derby  roar  that  rose 
As  they  strain' d  on  the  tips  of  their  titled  toes : 
"He's  alive!  He's  alive!    Who  said  he  was 

dead? 

Carve  into  the  heart,  the  neck,  the  head ! 
Hurrah!      Hurrah!      Ha'h!      HaTi!       Hah! 

Hah !  "— 
Till  the  thrice  denied  had  died. 

At  the  second  call  of  the  chanticleer 
They  reckoned  all  that  the  end  was  near; 


The  Kynockoskinator.  133 

And  Joe  the  Joker  led  Sam  forlorn 

Through    the    lowering    red    of    a    frowning 

morn ; 
And  the  flush  on  his  cheek  was  the  vineyard's 

flood, 
'Twas  shame  and  the  flush  of  the  vineyard's 

flood; 
But  the  stain  on  his  hand  was  the  blush  of 

blood, 

The  blush  and  the  blot  of  a  brother's  blood — 
Hah!  Hah! 


THE  KYNOCKOSKINATOR. 

WAR  is  the  wisher's  paradox — 
You  want  it  till  you  win  it — 

But  once  'tis  won,  like  Dora's  box, 
You  want  not  what  is  in  it. 

Drums,  trumpets,  epaulettes  and  arms — 
You  like  it  and  you  choose  it — 

But  having  won  its  winning  charms 
You  wait  a  chance  to  lose  it. 

It  is  not  what  it  used  to  be — 

Mechanical  man-pelting — 
Stretch  out  your  arm :    "  See  us !  See  me!  " 

Bang !    See  the  niggers  melting. 


134  Primrose  Diplomacy. 

'Tis  not  a  skilful  plan,  and  then 
Defeat  them  all  and  any ; 

It  is  to  scatter  fifty  men 

\Yith  fifty  times  as  many. 

And  when  the  fifty  scattered  men 
Come  up  to-morrow  gaily, 

It  is  to  scatter  them  again, 
And  do  it  over  daily. 

And  seeing  those  same  fifty  men, 

Two  thousand  times  or  more — 

"  We  face  a  hundred  thousand,"  then 
The  British  generals  roar. 

The  French  in  front  and  Pat  behind, 
The  two  of  them  together, 

Appear  two  million  to  the  mind 
Of  England  in  such  weather. 

They  hurry  Hoskins  up  again, 
And  double  the  supplies, 

They  scrape  the  colonies  for  men, 
And  Kynock's  prices  rise. 

They  scatter  money  o  er  the  wave, 
In  hot  and  headlong  haste, 

And  many  a  man  they  waste  to  save 
The  great  South  Afric  waste. 


The  Kynockoskinator.  135 

I  have  a  notion  to  suggest — 

Economies  commend  it — 
Of  course  it  may  not  be  the  best, 

Tho'  my  best  wish  attend  it. 

Tis  this :  that  England  get  some  one 

Accustomed  to  such  matters, 
Some  Yankee,  French  or  German  son, 

To  make  a  gun  that  scatters. 

A  big  revolving  scatter-gun, 

With  wind  or  water  power, 
To  set  some  lofty  kop  upon 

And  scatter  every  hour. 

Then  let  it  sweep  a  circle  there, 

A-scattering  without  cease, 
It  lays  about  it  everywhere, 

The  smiling  land  in  peace. 

The  soldiers  then  recross  the  wave 

To  peaceful  occupation; 
And  save  whatever  they  can  save, 

From  strenuous  taxation. 

Then  to  the  peers  we  turn  our  gaze, 

We  make  the  general  one ; 
Not  what  he's  done  is  what  we  praise, 

But  what  he  hasn't  done. 


136  Primrose  Diplomacy. 

And  while  your  wounds  are  waxing  well, 
Calm  Reason  seeks  your  door, 

The  power  of  peace  begins  to  tell 
Upon  your  sea  and  shore. 

Revolves  forever  'neath  the  sun, 

Whatever  the  conditions, 
That  faithful  automatic  gun, 

Maintaining  your  traditions. 

So  as  a  tribute  richly  won 

To  war's  great  agitator, 
We  name  this  novel  scatter-gun 

The  "  Kynockoskinator." 

Then  Fancy  breathes  upon  the  same, 

With  lavish  osculation, 
Till  "  War  "  assumes  the  firmer  name 

Of  "  Kynockoskination." 

What  care  that  we  must  bear  and  grin 
The  cause  of  the  confusion, 

Absorb  the  agitator  in 

Empirical  transfusion. 

For  as  prevention  betters  cure, 

'Gainst  further  agitation, 
Our  future  peace  is  rendered  sure 

By  "  hoskinockulation." 


Compensation.  137 


COMPENSATION. 

HAD  she  but  patient  been  and  pure, 
Wielding  the  old  high  skilled  diplomacy, 
Bringing  the  best  from  worst  with  dignity  and 

ease, 
Braving  the  temporary  scoff  as  one  with  faith 

to  see 

The  far  fair  triumph  of  the  right, 
How  had  she  won  throughout  the  passing  scorn 
The  homage  ultimate  of  all  mankind. 

Alas !  she  chose  what  seemed  che  easy  course ; 
Force  was   convenient    and   looked  quick  and 

sure ; 

She  put  aside  the  counsel  of  high  heaven, 
Closed  up  her  eyes  to  lessons  of  the  past, 
Listened  to  whispers  of  a  soulless  creed 
Of  empire  based  on  arms  and  avarice, 
And  took  the  sword. 

Beaten  in  every  battle,  she  has  proved  at  last 
That  quarter  of  a  million  mercenaries  disci 
plined 

Can  scatter  or  outflank,  but  never  crush, 
The  patriot  merest  handful,  rude,  untrained, 
unpaid, 


i38  Primrose  Diplomacy. 

But  all  inspired  with  love  of  liberty  and  home. 

\Yhat  has  she  now  to  show 

For  all  her  blood  and  treasure  spilled  ? 

For  all  her  sale  and  bargain  to  the  hounds 

That  fatten  on  the  public  spoils  ? 

Harvest  of  hate! 

These  same  scattered  patriots  and  their  chil 
dren, 

And  their  children's  children,  leagued  with  the 
dead, 

And  all  the  children  and  the  children's  children 
of  the  dead, — 

The  whole  air  filled  with  floating  ghosts  of 
murdered  men, — 

To  haunt  and  plague  and  hang  upon  her 
flanks, 

And  drag  her  to  her  final  end. 


Ruin  of  mission  merciful  and  just! 
Wreck  of  the  patient  hope  of  centuries ! 
Yet  if  the  world  shall  learn  therefrom 
That  only  swift  destruction  can  await 
Even  the  most  majestic  when  she  turns 
To  harken  to  the  sordid  counsels  of  the  con 
scienceless, 

Humanity  can  well  endure  to  witness  even  this 
catastrophe. 


Symptoms.  139 

America !     Take  warning ! 

Thou,  too,  art  such  as  she, 

Like  tempted  and  like  yielding  unto  sin. 

Halt !     While  the  time  remains, 

Halt  and  retreat! 

SYMPTOMS. 

WE  will  plaster  him  with  gold-leaf,  and  a  ped 
estal  we'll  get  him ; 

He's  the  author  of  our  fortunes,  tho'  the  father 
of  our  fears ; 

We  must  praise  him  as  we  raise  him;  we  can 
watch  him  where  we  set  him ; 

He's  the  peer  of  all  the  bosses,  and  the  boss  of 
all  the  peers. 

He's  the  social  and    official    and  commercial 

place  provider, 

The  beginning  and  the  end  of  the  begun  ; 
He's  the  enterprise  deviser  and  the  dividend 

divider, 
The.  remainder — if  there  is   one — -when  he's 

done. 

He's  the  instrument  and  mouthpiece  of  cor 
ruption  and  oppression; 

All  the  evils  that  the  human  soul  has  striven 
to  o'ercome 


140  Primrose  Diplomacy. 

He  has  gaily  gathered  to  him,  and  of  these  he 

makes  confession 
He's  the  multiple  least  common  and  the  most 

uncommon  sum. 

It  is  well — for  all  the  navies  of  humanity  unit 
ing 

Can  concentrate  their  engines  against  his  re 
sultant  prow, 

And  succeeding  fitful  fortunes  of  all  desultory 
fighting 

By  one  single  fateful  onset,  wreck  Hell's  whole 
Armada  now. 

Vain  the  hope  that  such  facility  can  figure  as 

reliever, 

For  the  citadel  of  evil  is  afar  within  the  gate ; 
He  is  only  a  bad  symptom,  tho'  he  thinks  he's 

the  whole  fever — 
He  is  nothing  but  a  pimple  on  the  purple  nose 

of  state. 

To  penetrate  the  pimple  you  will  jind  is  fairly 

simple, 
You  can  scissor  off  the  pimple — still  the  purple 

nose  is  sore; 
You  can  slice  the  purple  nose  off  till  it  goes  off 

with  the  pimple, 


Symptoms.  141 

Still  the  system  is  as  rotten  to  the  bottom  as 
before. 

He's  the  belched  up  tongue  of  pressure  from 

the  subterranean  firing ; 
He  is  Aetna  threatening  Sicily  by  night ; 
And  you  flee  him  as  you  see,  for  his  flame  is 

more  inspiring 
Of  foreboding  than  confiding,  for  it's  lurid  and 

not  light. 

With  most  salutary  purpose  you  essay  to  check 

his  gleaming, 
By    connecting  up  your   surface  streams    and 

playing  them  about ; 
There's  a  deal  of    bottled  bursting  and  a  little 

local  steaming, 
But  you  find  when  you  have  finished  that  you 

haven't  put  him  out. 

You  must  reach  into  the  bowels  of  the  earth  to 
cure  this  flaming ; 

You  must  turn  your  mighty  oceans  on  the  fun 
damental  part ; 

You  must  purge  the  constitution  while  the 
fever  you  are  taming; 

You  must  purify  the  conscience,  you  must  reno 
vate  the  heart. 


142  Primrose  Diplomacy. 

Speed   the   remedy,   lest  purposes   malevolent 

which  hurt  you 
Now  but  little,  reach  a  climax  no  drasticity  can 

cure — 
For  'tis  certain  that  the  keystone  of  ambition 

without  virtue 
Is  the  cornerstone  of  treachery  uprising  soon 

and  sure. 

WHO  SHOULD  PAY? 

WHY  should  the  mines  be  taxed  to  pay  the 

War? 

Rankest  injustice!     Inconsistency! 
Equality  is  equity,  you  say. 
And  share  and  share  alike,  the  fairest  rule. 
Is  it  not  custom  in  your  enterprise, 
For  those  who  are  promoters  to  receive 
The  lion's  share  for  giving  you  the  chance? 
Would  you  upset  that  law  with  all  the  rest, 
And  tax  instead  the  very  authors  of  your  op 
portunity  ? 

* 

Was  the  war  made  by  you  for  us  ? 
Be  honest,  now,  was  it  not  rather  we 
That  made  the  war  for  you  ? 
Whose  lies,  bribes,  plotting,  long  design, 
And  covert,  sinister,  unswerving  purpose 


Who  Should  Pay  ?  143 

Brought  the  war  ?     Were  they  not  ours  ? 
Who   says  it    was   the   mines  for   which   you 

fought  ? 

Traducer  black  and  base! 
Nay !     Have  you  not  with  withering  scorn 
And  earthquake  oath  shaken  a  thousand  plat 
forms- 
Hand   on   heart — (albeit   wriggling,   twisting 

your  thumbs, 

Redder  and  pale  by  turns,  and  sideways-eyed) 
Sworn  to  the  world  and  Heaven — that  charge 
is  false? 


Principle  and  prestige,  it  was,  you  said, — 

Principle  and  prestige — 

For  them  it  was  you  violated  faith, 

Broke  treaties,  flung  to  the  winds  discretion, 

Poured  out  your  life-blood  and  your  gold, 

Trod  under  foot  all  laws  of  mercy  and  of  truth. 

Was  it  our  principle,  or  our  prestige? 

Hah!  Hah!    Are  such  things  in  our  line? 

They  are  the  truck  you've  painted   on  your 

front — 
While  we  are  just  plain  traders — nothing  more. 

Come,  come  now,  stand  up !     Be  a  man ! 
Back  your  prospectuses,  for  here  you'll  find 


144  Primrose  Diplomacy. 

You've   caught   a   customer   who .  makes   you 

keep  your  pact — 
One  bargain  that  we  mean  to  hold  you  to. 

'Twas  yours,  not  ours,  you  saved — 

And  God  forbid  that  anything  of  ours 

Should  suffer  such  salvation. 

No,  'tis  not  in  the  bond,  say  \ve — 

But  were  it  in  the  bond, 

The  bond  is  broke  by  bad  delivery. 

That  is  our  perfect,  double-knitted  plea. 

But  were  they  both  held  bad, 

We'd  then  defy  the  judgment. 

Show  us  the  clerk  would  dare  to  entei;  it, 

Or  issue  process  forth ! 

Show  us  the  bailiff  who  dare  execute! 

Stay !     Think  awhile ! 

Know  we  not  things?     Would  you  we'd  over 

turn 
Judge,  jury,  deputies  and  jail? 

Wait.     Take  your  time.     Reason  with  us. 
Whose  were  the  factories  boomed? 
Whose  were  the  bucket-shops  macle  busy  ? 
Do  we  make  khaki    uniforms    and  guns  and 

such? 

Do  we  sell  ammunition,  ships  and  mules  ? 
Have  we  had  peerages  to  seek  ? 


The  Golden  Fleece.  145 

Was  it  our  relatives  in  line  of  boost 
Into  convenient  vacancies  by  fever  made 
In  partnership  with  hospitable  ambushes? 
We  are  plain  men  of  business — think  awhile 
again. 

We  certainly  caused  the  war? 

There,  there !     At  last  dawns  reason  now. 

Agreed — 'twas  we — 

And  therefore  you  should  pay. 

Must  we  promote  and  bear  the  burden  too  ? 

No!     Now,    you're   coming   round!     It   shall 

not  be ! 

Hah  !  Hah !  Hah !  Hah !     Now  sail  we  smooth ! 
And  those  whose  influence  and  means  befooled 

Old  England  into  such  a  war, 
By  that  same  sign  shall  see  the  same  old  fool 

Foot  all  the  bills. 

THE  GOLDEN  FLEECE. 

A  TOO-TOAD-LADEN  craft  some  day 
Towards  the  banks  of  England  steers, 
She  carries  croakers  and  a  quay, 

To  play 

Croquet, 

Picquet, 

Roulet, 
Upon  the  piers. 


146  Primrose  Diplomacy. 


MADE  IN  AMERICA. 

THE  Cobden  Club  had  died  resign'd 
To  leave  its  record  all  unmade, 
Had  they  a  pennyweight  divin'd 
The  present  burden  of  free  trade. 

America  is  England's  child, — 
A  sort  of  daughter  once  remov'd 
In  anger — but  now  reconciled, 
As  by  the  balances  is  prov'd. 

To  bread-stuff  traffick  first  confined, 
This  Mistress  of  the  mighty  oceans 
At  present  seems  to  be  inclined 
To  take  our  latest  Yankee  notions. 

A  hundred  years  ago  our  schemes 
She  scouted  wholly,  and  at  first 
Denied  the  best  of  all  our  themes, 
But  now  embraces  first  the  worst. 

Like  coin  obeying  Gresham's  law — 
The  cheapest  earliest  disbursed — 
When  friends  upon  our  notions  draw 
We  shove  the  bad  ones  over  first. 


Tacked.  147 

But  not  for  love  she  takes  our  stuff, 
Nor  can  our  profits  be  her  losses, 
Altho'  'tis  plain  we'd  gain  enough 
By  exportation  of  our  bosses. 


But  still  'twould  be  unfair  to  say 
That  paying  nothing's  paying  dear, 
Perhaps  the  busy  boss  can  pay 
In  England's  present  atmosphere. 


The  point  of  import  here  involved 
Is  this :  Can  England  claim  that  she 
From  obligation  is  absolved, 
Her  bosses  being  duty  free? 


TACKED. 

To  the  winds  old  Cobden  tossing. 

Flat  repealed; 
Bosses'  business  signs  embossing 

Public  shield. 

Duties  growing, 

Discords  flowing; 

Rights  relaxing; 

Taxing  waxing. 


148  Primrose  Diplomacy. 


SAINT  STEPHEN. 

I. 

SEE  them  stand  waiting  there,  watching  each 

other, 

Worthiest,  calling  themselves  "  the  elect  " ; 
This  looking  that  way,  and  that  one,  another, 
Shading  their  eyes  for  the  one  they  expect. 

Others  had  passed  o'er  the  landscape  before 

them, 

Whom,  as  they  came,  the  elect  had  denied ; 
Vain  the  denial!     Majestic  they  bore  them 
Straight  to  the  heights  by  the  Gods  glorified. 

No  more  mistakes  must  be  made  in  this  cen 
tury, 

All  the  elect  with  one  voice  have  declared; 

Should  some  new  genius  essay  to  adventure, 
he 

Surely  will  find  his  reception  prepared. 

Ready  are  all  the  elect  to  announce  him, 

Ready  are  all  the  elect  to  receive ; 

Finds  he,  whenever    the    heavens    pronounce 

him, 
All  the  elect  on  the  tip  of  qui  vive. 


Saint  Stephen.  149 

These  say  he'll  come  by  the  road  that  they 

mention ; 

Those  say  they  think  he's  not  coming  at  all; 
Scan  one  another  with  keen  apprehension, 
Lest  some  one  seeing  him,  distance  them  all 

Stealing  up  quietly  out  of  the  meadow, 
Up  from  the  darkness  behind  the  elect, — 
None  had  their  pickets  out  back  in  the  meadow, 
Comes  a  lone  man  with  a  garland  bedecked. 

All  of  them  heard  all  at  once  his  foot  falling, 
All  of  them  startled,  and  all  of  them  burst 
Into  a  wild  and  unanimous  calling : 
"  There  he    is !     There    he    is !     I    saw  him 
first!" 

Paused  he,  and  listened,  and  gazed  about  mild- 

ly, 

Wondering  what  the  commotion  could  be; 
Said  he,  at  last,  as  they  greeted  him  wildly : 
"  Really  you  have  the  advantage  of  me ! " 

II. 

Say  I  not  now  the  elect  are  mistaken ; 
Heaven  forbid  I  should  question  their  word ; 
Tho'  I  confess  to  a  confidence  shaken 
When  I  reflect  how  they  chiefly  have  erred. 


i5o  Primrose  Diplomacy. 

When  hitherto  a  new  star  was  approaching 
All  the  elect  have  denied  him  a  name, 
But  they  have  differed  in  terms  of  reproach 
ing,— 

Something  is  wrong  when  they  all  speak  his 
fame. 

Whether  they'd  like  to  revise  their  opinions, — 
Now  that  they've  time  to  examine  their  find, — 
Question  the  shape  of  his  beak  or  his  pinions, — 
Matters  now  never,  for  having  combined 

All  with  one  voice  to  pronounce  him  Messiah, 
Crowding  each  other  in  zeal  to  decide, 
Woe  be  the  wretch   who   should   turn  Jere 
miah — 
Stand  firm  together  who  dare  not  divide. 

Why    should    you    handicap    him    with    your 

praises  ? 

Burden  his  back  with  the  weight  of  your  name? 
When  your  indorsement  of  anything  raises 
Questions  of  quality  as  to  the  same? 

Maybe  my  memory  maketh  to  harden  me. 
Well  tho'  I  know  the  elect  to  be  wise, 
Be  my  belief — and  I  pray  you  to  pardon  me — 
Twill  be  in  spite  of  you  if  he  should  rise. 


Herod.  151 

Needs  he  not  now  the  elect  to  advise  him, 
Needs  he  not  Mammon  to  promise  him  pelf, 
While  your  too  tropical  vows  advertise  him, 
Knows  he  his  future  depends  on  himself. 


HEROD. 

GENIUS  awhile  was  dead,  but  now  again  the 

light 
Moves  and  upheaves  the  Stygian  pool. 

Whether  he  will  or  no, — 
And  even  to  himself  perhaps  unknown, 
Save  as  it  chance  to  tremble  on  his  veins 
Dim  consciousness  that  those  quick  currents 
Have  been  breathed  upon  by  Heaven,— 
He  makes  towards  thy  coasts,  O  Albion — 
Albion    that    was,    for    once    thy   cliffs    were 

white— 

And  brings  from  out  the  cruel  East 
And  the  far-speaking  Past, 
And  sets  upon  thy  shores 
A  transfixed, 
Dreadful, 

Rigid  and  immovable, 
Once  human, 
Not  even  dead, 

Tho'  wearing  all  the  lineaments  of  death, 
A  monument  oriental,  occidental,  universal, 


152  Primrose  Diplomacy. 

Damnably  true  to  history  and  nature, 

Too  late  for  warning  but  red  ripe  for  doom, 

Horrible  semblance  of  thyself! 

Where  is  the  pale  man  of  peace  whom  thou 

didst  vow  to  love  ? 
Whose  gentle  name  thy  boast  was  to  be  thine  ? 

O  mighty  Prostitute  of  the  red  robe  bedecked 
with  stolen  jewels, 

Thy  mouth  and  hands  both  blood-besmeared 

And  purpling  to  a  darker  destiny — 

Above  thy  victims'  innocent  dead  whiteness 

And  piteous  upturn'd  silence. 

Stand  thou  forever  gibbeted  before  the  Uni 
verse, 

Empress  of  Hell ! 

THE  HOT  HOUSE. 

AND  why  should    genius    haunt    the  Stygian 

pool? 

No  reason,  save  the  words  flow  well  together ; 
No  reason,  save  the  image  suits  the  weather ; 
No  better  reason,  O  fault-finding  fool ! 

And  why  should  Herod,  Mrs.  Herod  be? 
Because  his  figure  fits  the  season  better; 


And  Now  the  Greatest  One.       153 

Because  it  is  the  spirit,  not  the  letter, 
Becomes  the  sense  in  sailing  Fancy's  sea. 

Failing  in  life,  because  no  life  was  there; 
Failing  in  power,  because  no  power  could  be 
Brought  forth  of  creature  born  but  to  be  billed. 

Plant  of  the  green-room;  rose  of  the  yellow 

glare 
Fed  by  the  footlights;  fruit  of  the  Beerbohm- 

Tree; 
An  actor's  order  by  an  actor  filled. 

AND  NOW  THE  GREATEST  ONE. 

YES,  tens  of  thousands  gone! 

Best,  bravest,  truest  true. 
Arid  now  the  greatest  one, 

The  Queen,  the  Queen,  goes  too. 

She  looked  upon  the  dead, 

Fever  and  rifle  swept. 
With  shame  and  sorrow  bled 

Her  heart.     She  bo-wed  and  wept. 

She  called  him  to  her  place : 

"  Why  is  it  you  have  lied?  " 

She  looked  upon  his  face. 

She  hid  her  face  and  died. 


154  Primrose  Diplomacy. 


THE  QUEEN  IS  DEAD. 

WEEP,    England,    weep!     Weep!  Weep!  the 

World,  also ! 

The  Queen  has  passed  beyond  all  mortal  ken. 
Queens  also    sleep.     Queens,    men    and  mice 

must  go. 
Weep,     England,     weep!     Weep!  Weep!  the 

World,  again. 

Oh,  that  her  country  had  her  counsels  heeded ! 
Oh,  had  her  ministers  but  listened  when  she 

pleaded ! 
Hers  were  the   grace    and    reason    that    they 

needed ! 

Deaf,  deaf,  alas!  were  they  unto  her  pleading! 
Behold  two  little  nations,  dying,  bleeding! 

She's  dead.     Look  on  her  face. 

She's  fled  from  the  disgrace. 
She  saw  black  portents  of  the  future  speeding. 

Kneel,    England,    kneel!     Kneel,    kneel,    the 

World,  also! 

And  lay  a  wreath  of  lilies  on  her  breast. 
Queens  also    sleep.     Queens,    men    and  mice 

must  go. 
But  she  was  gentler,  stronger,  nobler  than  the 

rest. 


Cabled  from  Cowes.  155 

Weep,  England,  weep!  Weep!  Weep!  the 
World,  also ! 

Weep  now  and  many  morrows,  and  alway. 

Thy  Queen,  thy  Queen,  is  gone.  Thy  Great 
ness  is  to  go, 

For  England's  purity  has  died  to-day. 

CABLED  FROM  COWES. 

AROUND    an    old    four-posted   bed,    within    a 

simple  room 
(The  next  day  it  was  cabled  to  be  but  a  small 

spring  cot), 
The  princes  and  the  princesses  were  lingering 

agloom 
Until  Sir  James,  the  royal  leech,  should  say: 

"  The  Queen  is  not." 

The  Pomeranian  spaniel  occupied  a  place  of 

state. 
The  cooks  within  the  kitchen  were  a-cooking 

for  the  guest. 
The  Schleswig-Holstems    were    on  time;  the 

Battenbergs  were  late, 
When  V.  R.  I.  to  E.  R.  I.  passed  on  the  golden 

crest. 

The  Queen  had  asked  the  nurses  if  they 
wouldn't  take  the  air. 


156  Primrose  Diplomacy. 

Coincident  her  death-day  with  her  father's — 

Duke  of  Kent. 
The    interceding    Winchester    incessantly'  in 

prayer 
Was  down  beside  the  screened  and  melancholy 

bedside  bent. 


Her  grandchild,   Henry's  brother,   called  the 

Emperor  by  some, 
Arriving  from  his  royal  yacht  came  rushing 

up.     "Oh  dear!" 
Saith  William,  "  I'm  so  sorry  that  my  mother 

couldn't  come." 
Then  quoth  the  Queen :  "  I  much  regret  that 

Vicky  isn't  here." 

In  the  midst  of  the  petitions  of  the  Lord's  re 
peating  arm 

Came  a  shrill  and  treble  bleating  of  some  royal 
little  lamb 

Who  was  naturally  weary  but  was  innocent 
of  harm, — 

She  was  pounced  on  by  the  princesses  and  shut 
up  like  a  clam. 

The  arrangements  for  embalming  had  been 
made  the  night  before; 


Retouching.  157 

The  costliest  of    coffins    had    come  up  from 

London  town. 
They  gazetted — latest  title  on  that  list  of  many 

more — 
A  local  undertaker,  undertaker  to  the  crown. 

And  just  at  six  and  thirty,  Reid,  the  doctor, 
raised  his  head 

To  tell  them  that  her  pulses  were  not  beating 
any  more. 

The  correspondents'  bicycles  towards  the  vil 
lage  sped, 

The  telephone  arriving  by  some  fifteen  point's 
before. 

There's  milk  of  human  kindness  in  the  little 

Town  of  Cowes; 
You  can  see  the  swelling  tides  of  woe  first  rise 

and,  second,  sink, 
The  men  with  mighty  murmurs  move  when 

first  the  tidings  rouse, 
But  remembering  who  the  new  king  is  they 

stop  and  take  a  drink. 

RETOUCHING. 

I  WEEP  when  seeing  many  men 

A-painting  out  the  Vs. 

I  weep  and  pray  and  weep  again, 


1 58  Primrose  Diplomacy. 

Importunate  my  pleas. 
Oh,  give  me  back  my  Queen  again ! 
Restore  to  me  my  Queen  again! 
Oh,  let  me  have  my  Queen  again! 
Again  my  Queen!     My  Queen  again! 
And  you  can  take  your  E's. 

HOWELLS  ON  STEDMAN. 

A  CRAZY  quilt  of  many  a  piece  and  patch ; 
Hag  Income  gossiping  with  Dame  Conceit; 
An  erstwhile  literary  judgment-seat, 
Turn'd  calculating  shrine  of  Penny-Catch. 
Majestic  as  his  constellations  are, 
He  leads  them  all,  and  masterfully  makes 
Omissions,  misproportions  and  mistakes — 
Himself  his  own  particular  morning-star. 
But  then  how  gentle  doth  his  Preface  purr ! 
And  find  at  page  three  hundred  eighty-six 
Sufficient  solace  for  most  any  lapse! 
Or  turn  unto  the  next,  if  you  prefer, 
And  see  some  simple  adequate  to  fix 
The  color   of    fame — Perhaps — perhaps — per 
haps! 

GUIDES. 

SEEING  I  knew  not  the  Italian  tongue, 
Neither  the  low  low  sipa  nor  the  soft  si  si 
Of  the  celestial  music  Dante  sung, — 
She  gave  those  books  of  Norton's  unto  me. 


Guides.  159 

Three  volumnes  backed  by  Romans  "  I,  "  II," 
<•  jjj  " 

"I,  HELL,"  the  first;  "II,  PURGATORY," 

then  ; 
The  last  and    greatest,    "  PARADISE,"  was 

"  III,"— 
Three  mighty  circles  spanning  human  ken. 


I  started  in  and  went  quite  thro'  "  I,  HELL  " ; 
With  Virgil  and  the  Poet,  got  me  down 
Past  the  cold-storage  centre,  Dis  bedight  and 

fell- 
When  a  kind  book-man  sent  me  T.  E.  Brown. 


Farewell  "  II,  PURGATORY,"  and  to  Dante 

too; 

Farewell  old  Virgil  and  the  central  ice, — 
Charles  Eliot  Norton  and  the  like  of  you, — 
'Tis  Brown  who  guides  me  up  thro'  PARA 
DISE. 


Weep  tears  of  joy  and  sing  an  anthem  then, 
Let  me  my  glad  confession  gladly  tell 
To  the  sad  spirits  darkling  in  the  fen, 
'Twas  Brown,  the  Manxman,  led  me  up  from 
HELL. 


160  Primrose  Diplomacy. 

TRICOLORS. 

OH  paint  me  none  of  your  elegant  pale, 
Nor  the  red  and  the  black  of  your  town ; 
But  the  bonnie  brown  tint  of  the  nightingale, 
The  mellow  shade  of  that  "  Shakespeare  trim," 
Oh,  give  me  the  green  and  the  blue  with  him, 
The  green  and  the  blue  with  Brown. 


SAINT  MARK. 

THE  Master,  with  his  unctuous  portliness 
Veiling  the  politician's  shallow  skill, — 
Fit  leader  of  the  hypocrites  who  fill 
The  ranting  air  with  rank  blood-guiltiness. 
The  trumpeted  and  stumbling  elephant 
Trampling  the  field  mice  with  his  clumsy  feet; 
The  huddling  herds'  servility  complete, 
Allegiant  to  the  bad  man  elegant. 
Welcome  an  honest  man  whose  fearless  blade 
Pricks  the  infection  of  the  windy  bag. 
He  paints  the  color  of  the  khaki  rag 
Over  the  whole  contagious,  unclean  trade. 
A  flash  of  Freedom  on  the  gathering  dark ! 
Welcome !     Draw  forth  thy  sword  again,  Saint 
Mark! 


Howells.  161 

KHAKI. 

With  apologies  to  Saint  Mark. 

A  DIRTY  yellow,  between  gold  and  brass, 
Fit  color  for  this  fetid  enterprise 
Whose  saffron  twilight  vagues  and  mystifies 
Till  shoals  of  counterfeits  float  up  and  pass. 
Behold  an  Empire  held  in  quarantine, 
Sequestrated  by  hatred  and  distrust, 
Contaminated  by  unholy  lust, 
Her     every     soldier     cries:  "Unclean!     Un 
clean  !  " 

Reflect  the  statesman's  face  whose  flag  this  is, 
His  cachinnated  chirp  and  metal  grin 
Cracking  the  twisted  pie-crust  cheek-a-jowl; 
Steam  through  the    seams    of    this  unseemly 

phiz, 

Unwholesome  sallows  from  the  mire  within, 
Unipecackt  humors  of  a  jaundiced  soul. 

HOWELLS. 

LIKE  the  poised  lance,  and  polished,  strikes  the 

ear 

His  sure  attack,  but  gentle.     With  delight 
This  master  of  expression  brings  the  right 
And  perfect  word  to  bear  its  true  and  clear 
II 


162  Primrose  Diplomacy. 

And  satisfying  sense  upon  the  mind. 
Delicate  cloud-lights  exquisite  arise 
To  lift  the  longings  of  less  gifted  eyes, 
And  wake  the  dead,  and  kindle  anew  the  blind. 
The  sleeping  conscience  rouses  as  his  deft 
And  searching  blow  sends  hurrying  from  the 

field 

Those  sloven  cowards,  sham  and  servility. 
Clean,  brave  and  honest  in  a  world  bereft 
Of  chivalry;  balm  to  the  would-be-healed; 
Champion  of  manhood's  real  nobility. 


THE  NATION. 

CHRONIC  disturber.     Matchless  discontent 
Sits  trying  to  contract  thy  wary  brow. 
Drastic  upheaver  of  my  liver,  thou ; 
A  quick  rock  into  stagnating  waters  sent. 

Spirit  of  Garrison,  never  storm'd  or  flank'd, 
Faces  the  foe  undaunted ;  loses,  gains ; 
The  irrepressible  conflict  still  maintains, 
Led  by  the  offspring  .Wendell  Phillips  spank' d. 

Turn  on,  turn  on ;  the  turn-spit  and  the  roasts ; 
Sear  the  proud  flesh ;  then  roll  the  piece  about 
And  sink  the  blast  into  some  cancer  new. 


The  Outlook.  163 

Burn  on,  burn  on;  leaving  familiar  coast 
We  steer  by  retrospect;  old  lights  go  out, 
Save  this  eccentric  beacon  still  turns  true. 


GO  WITH  HIM  TWAIN. 

THE  stiff est  lot  of  non-resistant  stock 
That  ever  shook  a  stick,  or  took  a  knock. 


THE  OUTLOOK. 

THIN  varnish  of  religiosity 
Slick' d  over  a  vast  surface  of  conceit. 
An  oracle  itinerant,  whose  seat 
Camp-stools  along  with  grave  velocity. 

An  army  hanger-on;  dilated  eyes 
Show  how  the  drum-beat  has  upset  his  wit 
To  swing  and  swell  the  sidewalk  opposite: 
"  This  is  my  army  and  my  march,"  he  cries. 

Greets  Frederick's  chicanery  with  applause; 
And  shouts    "  Amen "    down   Ament's  moral 

pit; 

Comes  Evil  big  and  strong,  he  parleys  it ; 
Hair-splitting  balancer  in  Freedom's  cause. 


164  Primrose  Diplomacy. 

Convert    to    Mammon,    thee    thy    speech    be- 

wray'th, 
Loud  remnant-peddler  of  a  vanished  faith. 

ESTIMATION. 

IN    this    day  of    sterling    standards    wherein 

everything  is  measured, 
From  the    poet    to    the    peerage,  by  the 

money  it  surrounds, 

'Tis  appropriate,  tho'  painful,  to  behold  a  bro 
ther  treasured 

At  the  nominal  appraisal   of  but  fifteen 
hundred  pounds. 

Bare  fifteen  hundred  sterling  for  a  brother's 

reputation ! 
Who  paid   the  fifteen   hundred   pounds? 

the  people  want  to  know  : 
Did  the  real  defendant  pay  it  ?     Or  did  Joe,  in 

refutation 

Of  the  inconvenient  truth  across  the  path 
he  wants  to  go? 

Sad  the  status  of  a  country  when  her  states 
manship  requires 

Formal  judgments  of  a  jury  that  it  is  not 
what  it  seems; 


Nemesis.  165 

Sadder  still  the  low  conceptions  of  the  states 
man  who  inspires 

Such  a  claptrap  demonstration  to  advance 
his  guinea  dreams. 

Now  the  country  and  the  statesmen  and  the 

judges  and  the  jury 
Solidarity     of    insular     connotions    have 

combined ; 
Then  they  whirl  upon  the  future  with  a  wild 

inflated  fury 

Till  they  suddenly  awaken  where  the  mad 
convey  the  blind. 

HOUNSLOW  HEATH. 

Come,  pull  yourself  together,  England,  Rub 

your  heavy  eyes, 

And  look  about  and  see  where  lie  has  led  you. 
How  he's  brought  you  to  the  border,  England, 

Where  all  virtue  dies; 

How  he's  humbugg'd,  drugg'd,  sand-bagged, 
dragg'd,  gagg'd  and  bled  you. 

NEMESIS. 

WHEN  Birmingham  had  had 
His  high  carousal  sad, 
And  brought  his  country  into  deep  disgrace, 


1 66  Primrose  Diplomacy. 

They  still  supported  him 
From  centre  unto  rim 
Until  the  Angel  Michael  showed  his  face. 


Then  the  firm  circle  broke, 

Each  severed  segment  spoke, 
Each  said  it  was  the  other  ought  to  pay. 

"  We  pause  upon  the  brink; 

Our  pockets  make  us  think." 
Then  Birmingham  goes  glimmering  away. 


THE  BELLOWS. 

BIRMINGHAM  had  a  furnace, 

And  she  had  a  bellows  too, 
And  the  bellows  she  blew,  blew,  blew. 

She  blew  east,  west, 
North,  south  and  all  the  rest; 
She  blew  the  whole  boxed  compass  through. 
She  blew  red,  green,  yellow,  indigo  and  blue; 

She  blew  up  Birmingham/ 

She  blew  up  Britain, 

She  blew  up  the  Empire — 

For  so  it  is  written — 
And  she  blew  up  the  bellows  too. 


Milner.  167 


THE  EXTINCT  LIBERAL. 

So  busy  writing  of  his  great  forbears, 
He  must  himself -forbear  of  being  great. 
So  sneers  the  enemy.     But  he  who  dares 
To  state  the  right,  will  some  day  right  the 
State. 

MILNER. 

MESSAGES  garbled  and  the  truth  suppressed 
To  aid  his  purpose  and  foment  a  strife 
Whose  now  returning  fangs  menace  the  life 
Of  his  own  country.     Claims  are  set  at  rest — 
Reward    of    treason.      Freebooters    self-con 
fessed. 

Are  raised  to  prominence  to  emphasize 
The  methods  by  which  Englishmen  may  rise 
Upon  the  ruins  of  the  lands  they  wrest. 
Not  till  my  heel  is  firm  upon  his  neck 
Can  I  consider.     Then  I  will  be  kind 
And  show  him  statesmanship  and  civilize 
His  rudeness.     Deathless  mid  the  wreck 
His  spirit  still  defies  me.     But  I'll  grind 
His  wasting  body  till  no  dust  replies. 


i68  Primrose  Diplomacy. 


MESMER. 

THE  gipsy  wrapped  the  victim's  will  in  hers, 
And  round  the  yielding  senses  deftly  threw 
The  three-striped  fetich  with  the  single  hue 
Of  Milnerism,  mines  and  milliners. 

Dazed  by  the  charm  of  some  hypnotic  spell, 
She  turns  again  to  worship  poppy-shows, 
Wigs,  functions,  powdered  faces,  furbelows, 
And  other  royal  tales  the  taxes  tell. 

The  glad  familiar  smile;  the  hearty  shakes 
Of  the  happy  hand;  a  slap  on  the  back;  em 
brace 

Of  the  friendly  right  arm.     Vacancies  fix 
The  filming  eyes.     And    while   the   one  hand 

makes 

A  sinister  pass  before  the  dreaming  face, 
The  nimble  right  the  patient's  pocket  picks. 

PROTECTION. 

AT  last  the  crowning  error  is  revived; 
Son  of  corruption  and  her  fruitful  sire; 
Maid  of  the  miasm,  mother  of  the  mire; 
,  Maker  of  evils,  from  all  ills  derived. 


Liberty.  169 

Just  as  the  dawn  was  rising  upon  men, 

And  tottering  privilege  approached  the  brink, 

Appears  this  harlot  with  her  blinding  drink 

And  sets  up  inequality  again. 

Again  to  the  same  gay  charlatan  we  turn ; 

His  ringers  itch,  his  mad  ambitions  burn ; 

Captain  of  makeshifts,  knight  of  the  hollow 
sound, 

He  sinks  the  ship  to  run  himself  aground. 

Hail,  noble  England!  Once  we  loved  thee 
well! 

Hail,  noble  England!  Hail,  and  alas,  fare 
well! 


LIBERTY. 

"  MY  Country,  'tis  of  thee, 

Sweet  land  of  liberty  " — 

•"  Thus  shall  she  ever  be  "— 
Saith  William — and  the  argument  is  clinched. 

Sweet  William  of  Canton, 

Smile  quickly,  and  pass  on ; 

Thy  hosts  would  sooner  see, 

Than  liberty  and  thee, 
A  sheriff  bested  and  a  nigger  lynched. 


1 70  Primrose  Diplomacy. 

THE  DINNER  PAIL. 

SWEETS  to  the  sweet,  gifts  to  the  giver,  be; 

The  President  approximates  a  pie-man; 
The  suppliant  citizen,  distributee; 

With  rights  of  man  recast  to  date  by  Ly- 
man. 

BALLAST. 

ONE  John  Marshall,  in  the  place  of  Brown, 
Had  turn'd  the  topsy-turvy  judgment  down. 

FEDERAL  BANKRUPTCY. 

THEIR  assets  are  many,  but  mightily  mixed 

In  a  mass  of  amazing  misfits; 
Nor  can  we  account  our  affairs  to  be  fixed 

Till  some  one  has  marshalled  their  wits. 

THE  FADING  FLAG. ' 

THE  constitution  follows  trade; 

Haul  the  old  colors  down ; 
Up  with  the  salt-and-pepper  shade 

Of  gray  and  white  and  brown. 


The  Fading  Flag.  171 

The  red  for  courage,  blue  for  truth, — 

Wipe  the  old  flag  away, — 
And  substitute  for  them,  forsooth, 

Commercial  brown  and  gray. 

Store-keeper,  pass  the  parcels  down, 
Check  up  and  take  your  pay. 

The  red  has  grown  tobacco  brown, 
The  blue  a  sugar  gray. 

Can  no  sound  manhood  be  secured 
From  all  our  wits  combined? 

Can  only  noxious  weeds  be  cured, 
And  cane-brake  be  refined? 

Farewell,  Old  Glory,  fare  thee  well ! 

Farewell  our  ancient  pride. 
Our  only  faith,  to  buy  and  sell, 

Our  conscience  set  aside. 

Red,  white  and  blue,  no  more  she  waves; 

As  in  the  olden  day ; 
Fold  her  upon  our  fathers'  graves, 

And  sadly  turn  away. 

Wake  up!     Wake  up!     It  cannot  be! 

Raise  the  old  flag  again. 
And  let  our  waiting  brothers  see 

A  remnant  still  are  men. 


172  Primrose  Diplomacy. 

THE  CONSTITUTION. 

PAINT  bones  and  numskulls  on  the  rag 
Across  a  deep  black  ground, 

Then  elevate  the  pirate  flag 
And  glower  all  around. 

SAINT  HELENA. 

OCEAN-BARR'D    cell    where    Europe's    dragon 

pined, 

Held  boasted  prisoner  in  England's  name; 
Seizing  thereby,  with  her  prompt  usual  claim, 
The  fruited  labors  of  them  all  combined. 

Now  crown'd  with  a  cattle-pen  for  herded  men 
Rack'd  in  slow-dying  duress,  to  extort 
From  these  dumb  victims'  suffering,  support 
For  England's  thumb-screw  policy  again. 

The  prisoners  are  the  jailers.     England's  fame 
Hangs  grill'd  and  pinioned  on  that  island  horn, 
With  her  unmask'd  barbarity  in  plain 
And  damning  view  of  the  patient  world.     A 

flame 

Of  smould'ring  justice  leaps  in  all  human-born, 
While  the  wild  ocean  frets  for  the  hurricane. 


A  Prime  Minister.  173 


SALISBURY. 

STRAINS  at  ten  gnats  of  Christian  charity, 
One  at  a  time,  and  cannot  swallow  one ; 
Then  takes  at  one  fell  gulp,  and  only  one, 
The  Devil's  steel-knit  solidarity. 

Refuses  action  on  a  thousand  grounds, 
To  further  peace  and  veto  public  waste ; 
Then  sudden  spends,  in  hot  unreason' d  haste, 
On  needless  war,  two  hundred  million  pounds. 

Sleek,  hard  and  ugly,  yet  a  good  bell-bull 
For  other  sleek,  hard,  ugly  ones,  to  run 
Amuck  with  when  he  has  his  glaring  fits; 

But  if  one  seek  for  statesmanship,  more  full 

Of  vacancy  than  any  other  one — 

A  splendid  tool  for  men  of  quicker  wits. 

A  PRIME  MINISTER. 

SAY  you  he  some  time  shed  his  blood  for  us? 
'Tis   naught.     He   is    a   traitor.     Tread   him 

down ; 

With  timely  insults  keep  him  exercised; 
Spit  on  his  sad  green  island  sod. 


T74  Primrose  Diplomacy. 

Reach  into  the  very  vitals  of  his  conscience  and 

his  heart, 
And   tear  his  life-strings  till   they  hang  and 

drip. 

His  skill  and  courage  saved  us  from  disgrace? 
I   will  not  hear  it.     Watch  him.     His  breed 

is  bad — 

One  of  the  many  litters  doom'd  to  decay, 
Their  sole  remaining  tenure  of  survival 
Being  it  pleases  us  to  let  them  live. 


Refused  we  chances  to  assist  the  weak? 
What  right  have  they   to  be  so?     Or   what 

claim  on  us? 

Is  this  an  imbecile  home  of  superannuates  ? 
A  fond  asylum  for  incompetents 
Or  orphaned  infancy  or  women  forlorn? 
Our  government  a  sanatorium  ? 
Our  officers  dispensators  of  salve? 

Have  we  done  positive  wrong? 

Bah!     What  is  wrong?     But  a  conventional 

sound. 
Let  me  reverberate  a  little:  "Right!  Right! 

Right ! 
All  Good !  All  Good !  Good !  Good !  No  Fault ! 

No  Fault!" 


A  Prime  Minister.  175 

I  blind  and  deafen  judgment  by  my  roar; 
I  break  the  echoes  till  their  interrupting  waves 
Set  up  a  choppy  opaque  tide-riven  bar 
Where  all  the  little  vexing  up-set  tell-tales  tur 
tle  and  duck; 

Accredit  me  with  money,  an  army  and  votes — 
I'll  elevate  the  triumph  of  self-shouted  praise. 


Do  they  all  hate  us  ?     Fetch  me  my  book ! 
Find  me  the  language  that  brings  loathing  up, 
Beats  latent  scorn  into  an  impotent  foam; 
Marshal  me  all  the  vile  vernacular 
With  mercenary  miscreants  out  of  the  past 
When  men  were  slaves,  and  ancestors  of  mine 
Wielded  the  lash ;  sift  out  the  choicest  ruffians ; 
Choose  them  with  cunning;  concentrate; 
Grenade  the  ultimate  vitriolic  sum — 
Quick!     Now  the  calm  moment  ripens! 
Seems  there  a  quiet  in  their  calumny  ? 
Quicker!     They  soften  and  sweeten  a  bit! 
Hand  me  the  black-snake !     Let  me  lay  it  on ! — 
Some  skill'd  expression  steep'd  in  contempt — 
And  throw  the  blister  into  the  gaping  welts — 
Then  see  them  turn  again  to  gnash  and  froth 
and  howl! 


176  Primrose  Diplomacy. 


THE  IRON-BROWN'D  LATH. 

A  MAN  granted  by  Heaven  more  chance  to  do 

more  good 

Than  all  the  corridors  of  time  contain  beside; 
Yet  whose  accomplishment  recorded  shows 
No  single  opportunity  to  rescue  virtue 
Or  uphold  the  helpless  weak  embraced, — 
The  rather  shrunk  from  in  prompt  cowardice. 

But  every  "  chance  to  do  ill  deeds  "  seized  with 

avidity, 

And  hurried  to  fruition, 
Were  there  but  knaves  enough  behind, 
Backed  by  an  army  of  fools, 
To  push  him  in. 

THE  ROTTEN  BOROUGH. 

AN  inner,  nearer  circle  filled  with  mounds, 
On  which,  as  filters  forth  the  harvest  moon, 
Mid  vaporous  odors  dank  and  decadent, 
Sit  sorry  skeletons  unsteadily. 

Restless  and  rattling  as  they  elbow  round, 
They  glare  and  goggle  through  their  socket- 
holes. 


The  Rotten  Borough.  177 

And  mutter  mute,  unmeaning,  lipless  things — 

A  lowering  suspicion  immanent 

That  glory  sits  on  them  uncomfortable. 

Beyond,  a  sombre,  melancholy  throng 
Of  pale-faced  women  spent  with  ecstasy — 
The  dowagers  of  military  fame 
With    haggard    striplings    clinging    to    their 
skirts. 

While  out  and  out  in  ever-widening  spheres, 
Concentred  on  the  magic  cynosure, 
Swell  to  the  horizontal  terminals 
Galleries  on  galleries  of  constituents. 

Wonderful  transformation !     Past  belief ! 
Men  whom  the  world  had  marked  of  sordid 

mien, 

Wedded  to  money,  merchandise  and  self, 
Schemers  and  cornerers  and  cinch-experts, 
Catch  the  divine  afflation  instantly, 
Fill  till  they  almost  burst  with  loyalty 
Glowing  incontinent  with  altruism, 
Leap  to  a  lofty,  missionary  flame. 

Grades  and  distinctions  are  all  levelled  down; 
In  fierce  democracy  of  equal  aim 
The  landed  lady  rustling  silkenwise 

12 


178  Primrose  Diplomacy. 

Jostles  the  manufacturer  of  khaki-stuff, 
And  he,  the  cutter  and  the  button-man. 


Swayed  in  hypnotic  subjectivity 
Bursts  the  acclamatory  chorus  forth 
To  him  who  waves  the  wand,  unites  the  wire, 
Binds  and  unbinds  the  bond,  spells  and  dispels. 
While  the  accordant,  companying  wind 
Fifes  through  a  general's  rib  interstices; 
And,  minus  heads  and  legs,  the  wobbly  trunks, 
Sitting  uncertain  on  their  narrow  beds, 
In  joint  and  several  reciprocity 
Drum  with  their  shin-bones  on  their  toppled 
skulls. 

THE  CRITIC. 

IN  truth  a  weakness  I  confess 

Both  in  and  for  my  verses; 

And  be  it  neither  more  nor  less 
Tho'  critic  art  coerces. 


Coercions  kill  and  critics  too — 
A  Donnybrook  of  brothers — 

For  what  themselves  they  cannot  do 
Is  criminal  in  others. 


Tho  Stopper.  179 

Poke  but  a  head  beyond  the  door — 

These  foes  of  aspiration 
Go  pinch  his  current  off  .before 

He  gasps  for  inspiration. 

Poor  hag-faced  midwives  of  the  mind, 

Sad  snuffers  of  creation, 
Douse  every  glim  to  spare  their  blind 

And  blank  imagination. 

So  do  beware  that  sorry  crew — 

Whichever  way  you  rub  them, 

They'll  backbite  in  a  rub  or  two — 
'Tis  only  safe  to  snub  them. 

"  You're  one  yourself,  forsooth,"  they  cry, 

Inditing  the  inditer; 
'Tis  true,  a  sort  of  one,  for  I 

Do  backbite  the  backbiter. 


THE  STOPPER. 

IF  all  my  kind  advising  friends  had  said : 

"  Your    style    is    beautiful.     Come,     publish 

now !  " 

Methinks  my  genius  then  and  there  had  fled, 
And  exit  me  before  my  opening  bow. 


180  Primrose  Diplomacy. 

But  everybody  said:  "  Don't!  Don't!  Don't! 

Don't!  " 
"What's  that?''  said  I.     "I  guess  I  think  I 

will." 
And  then :  "  Please  stop !  " 

"Oh,  No!" 

"You  must." 

"I  won't!" 
And  so  I  did  not  stop,  and  do  not  still. 

I  did  not  stop,  and  do  not  think  I  will. 
Widow  my  muse  before  I  even  get  her  ? 
It  suits  me  best  to  press  my  suit  until 
I'm  sure  some  other  suitor  suits  her  better. 

So  whether  I  succeed  or  my  successor, 
My  dust  be  gold,  or  all  my  gold  be  copper, 
My  wine  be  bursting  vinegar, — Assessor ! 
Set  it  not  to  the  wine,  but  tax  the  stopper. 


THE  CORK. 

METHINKS  my  critic  is  a  little  cork, 
Wooden  and  colorless,  save  ashen-hued, 
He  fits  and  bottles.     To  a  screw  or  fork, 
With  great  amenability,  endued. 


The  Cork.  181 

My  critic  is  a  cork  cut  short  to  sell, 

And  fitted  into  little  holes  to  sink, 

In  smaller  ends.     A  drop  will  make  him  swell, 

A  very  little  pressure  make  him  shrink. 


Not  even  pithy,  tho'  that  epithet 
Would  seem  appointed  to  the  spongy,  lax, 
Ill-meated  matter  in  the  middle  met — 
Unhoneyed  comb  of  artificial  wax. 


Not  even  pointed,  dull  and  somewhat  flat, 
Pushed  into  service,  sealed  with  a  piece  of  tin, 
Stamp'd  with  a  legend  loud  proclaiming  that 
The  critic's  owner  puts  and  keeps  him  in. 


Howso  securely  tight  the  bottle  be, 
Its  contents  whether  seltzer  or  champagne, — 
A  little  pull, — the  spirit  is  set  free, — 
Pop!     Goes  the    critic    through  the  window- 
pane. 


A  little  pull !     My  critic,  mark  the  matter! 
The  word  is  little,  but  the  meaning  full 
As  any  buckwheat  cake  of  flannel  batter — 
What  chiefly  moves  the  critic  is  a  pull. 


1 82  Primrose  Diplomacy. 

My  critic  cork  is  but  a  little  bark 
A  bark,  a  thought  occurring  to  a  cur, 
Told  to  the  moon,  a  little  after  dark, 
When  the  wind  whistles  to  the  thistle-spur. 


My  critic  cork  is  but  a  little  bark 

Afloat  upon  his  own  fantastic  sea, 

An  orphaned  bay  whose  frothy  shallows  mark 

How  far  its  waters  from  the  ocean  be. 


(An  orphaned  bay — bow-wow! — an  orphaned 

bay! 
How  "  pawky  "  is  the  tongue  that  tricks  you 

so! 

I  read  it  in  the  New  York  N to-day, 

Of  Campbell-Bannerman — I've  used  it — lo!) 

There  is  no  room  for  any  Heaven's  breath 
To  wake  those  shallows  to  an  ocean  song; 
To  save  his  sun-suck' d  sea  from  pickled  death, 
He  stirs  and  spatters  as  he  squids  along. 

Dreaming  amid  his  own  midsummer  wrecks, 
This  floating  stopper  in  his  sanctum  sits, 
And  keeps  his  flock  of  broken  heads  and  necks, 
Of  fitted  bottles  and  of  bottled  fits. 


94118 


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